Life on the Brink of Insurrection
by Ace of Hearts
Summary: Begin with a 19th-century imperialist empire, stir in some gallant officers (take care not to mess up Randy's perfect coif!), sprinkle in a dash of crafty ninja (watch out for their poisons), and bake at 450 degrees for a yummy AU treat.
1. Prologue: A Storm Brewing on the Horizon

**Early Fall of 1870, Axton**

It wasn't everyday that the little town of Layesen, situated on the outskirts of Axton's capital city, got a visit from any member of the House of Lords, let alone the Head of the House himself—the Duke of Cordoran, otherwise known as Lord Eric Bischoff. Such a grand event called for entire families to drop even the most pressing work and come out to the streets, if only to catch a brief, fleeting glimpse of His Excellency the Duke.

Laborers and farmers all, they were simple people who only wanted a chance to one day tell their children and grandchildren that, once upon a time, they'd rubbed shoulders with the aristocracy…no matter how despised said aristocrat actually was. For, Lord Bischoff was by far one of the most unpopular politicians in the Thelian Empire, notorious for always siding with the ruling class and in the process stomping all over the rights of the working class.

But, no matter, for he was still the people's lord. As such, the smug duke attracted enthusiastic cheers and eager greetings from the good-hearted plebeian as he rode past them on a resplendent gilded coach, drawn by a team of magnificent dappled horses.

Around Lord Bischoff's carriage rode his security team, comprised mainly of wide-eyed young cadets hastily recruited earlier that day from the nearby Fort Halcyon and placed under the dubious command of the Imperial Guard's Third Captain, Randy Keith Orton. The young soldiers-turned-bodyguards-for-a-day rode awkwardly, jiltingly, unused to the sight of so many strange faces peering at them when none had ever witnessed even a skirmish, terrified of making a mistake, their silver-hilted cavalry swords banging against their knees as they jolted along the road.

Their illustrious leader, for his part, wasn't proving to be much help at instilling any confidence in his charges. Just as Lord Bischoff was eliciting cheers from the workers, so was young Captain Orton eliciting shy giggles and fluttering eyelashes from their daughters, and instead of keeping a watchful eye on his troops, Randy had ridden away to flirt and tease with every pretty girl in sight.

* * *

The current situation presented to the petite yet curvaceous kunoichi_(1)_ hidden amidst the dark leaves of a nearby tree, in fact, couldn't be more perfect for her mission. She was wearing a typical ninja nightsuit in black and scarlet—the trademark colors of the infamous Kuro Kei clan—and strapped to her feet to help her grip the tough bark of the tree trunk was a pair of steel-gray ashiko, those spiked claws so dear to a ninja's heart.

_It is just as the Okashira(2) predicted,_ she thought smugly to herself as she watched the procession below. Captain Randy Orton was, as always, distracted by the sight of pretty girls whenever no immediate danger was around, giving the diminutive ninja in the tree a clear shot at Lord Bischoff. A clear shot, without any annoying Imperial Guards to stand in her way.

Lord Bischoff's carriage was slowly approaching her post now, and the jet-and-crimson-clad ninja slowly and noiselessly began to straighten up from her crouched position amongst the dense, leafy foliage. Randy was off somewhere, several feet away from the duke's carriage as he leaned down to ceremoniously accept a crown of fragrant honeysuckle from a blushing blonde beauty. He left behind only a squad of apprehensive and barely-trained young cadets ranging from ages fourteen to seventeen: the sole protectors the pompous Duke of Cordoran as he leaned out of his carriage to sneer at the awestruck commoners.

The kunoichi, meanwhile, saw her perfect opportunity for a shot, and seized it.

Her actual attack was unleashed in the blink of an eye, with such fantastic speed that nobody was quite sure of what exactly had just happened to His Excellency the Duke. One moment he was tossing his head contemptuously at the plebeian, the next he had dropped back inside his carriage, dead with a long, slender, poison-tipped dart imbedded two inches into his throat. His valet, who'd been sitting deferentially inside the coach in case his master was in want of anything, immediately let out a piercing, bloodcurdling scream when Lord Bischoff's dead body flung itself upon his lap.

The poor manservant's siren soon proved itself to be a catalyst to chaos. The abrupt and chilling wail of horror sent both people and horses into a frenzy, the upset horses rearing up and neighing in fright while the equally terrified people forgot all common courtesy and stampeded toward Lord Bischoff's carriage, nearly trampling over the helpless Fort Halcyon cadets trying to keep them back.

Randy, for his part, finally realized that something had gone terribly wrong and quickly took charge, riding over to the mob and scattering the luckless workers as he plunged through tightly-packed human bodies.

"What has just happened?" Despite his youth, the Third Captain cut an imposing, authoritative figure amongst the crowds, towering over everybody else atop his fierce, coal-black stallion and looking every bit the perfect commander in his immaculate Imperial Guards attire: royal blue frock coat with proudly gleaming gold epaulets, starched white linen shirt and cravat, brocade waistcoat with a wide cardinal silk sash, mustard-colored breeches, and varnished black riding boots.

A babel of shrill voices swarmed over the dashing young captain upon his question, confused, keening, panicked, neighbor contradicting neighbor, each fighting to be heard over the uproar. Randy, however, paid them no heed, for just then he caught a slight, furtive movement out of the corner of his eyes that explained everything.

The action itself, though lightning quick, revealed to the young Imperial Guard captain all that he needed to know about the assassin's identity. For, with that one glimpse, Randy had caught a blur of black-and-scarlet flying from branch to branch back into the shadow world where it had come from. Black…and scarlet. The colors of Kuro Kei.

"Damn them! Damn ninja! Damn women!" he cursed silently, as he rode over to the carriage and began firing off orders that Lord Bischoff was to be immediately transported to the safe confines of Fort Halcyon.

Alternating a glance from the still-warm corpse of the Duke of Cordoran to the tree the Kuro Kei ninja had occupied, Randy swore again under his breath as he began to ride back to the military fort at a swift trot.

"So it's finally begun," he murmured to himself, narrowing his dark blue eyes before shaking the reins of his horse and riding off in a whirlwind of dust.

In his wake, he left behind a crowd of silent, grim laborers and farmers, who watched the hasty retreat with solemn eyes. A hushed murmur began rippling across the multitude, as they pondered over how such a glorious day could have ended with such a shocking tragedy.

Suddenly, a charming, feminine voice spoke up, rising in clear cadences over the frantic, jumbled cacophony of the commoners until its owner held everyone's attention.

"Somebody should have placed more guards around Lord Bischoff's carriage," pretty, petite, and fair-haired Trish Stratus remarked with doe-eyed innocence, before smiling sweetly for the stock-still crowd and departing back into the woods after offering them a brief curtsey.

* * *

1. kunoichi: a female ninja  
2. Okashira: the title of the leader of a ninja clan


	2. Prologue, Part II: Dark Clouds Gather

**Post-Assassination, Sieragona**

Golden summer lingered into the early months of fall on that fateful year of 1870, encouraging King Vincent II and his family with its drowsy warmth and pleasant sunshine to likewise linger in their Summer Palace, situated by a pristine beach near the Heatherton Falls coast, which was renowned for its breathtaking beauty and old-fashioned charm.

During their vacation, the Royal Family took some time to enjoy a whirlwind of fox hunts, barbecues, and lively festivals--the trademark entertainment Sieragona was famous for. As the finishing touch, Their Majesties ceremoniously accepted the honor of presiding over that kingdom's annual St. Catherine Masquerade Ball.

King Vince and Queen Linda had been in the midst of planning a spectacular evening ball to celebrate Princess Stephanie's betrothal to King Hunter, ruler of the neighboring country of Terrencruise, when the First Captain of the Imperial Guards himself arrived on horseback with the news of Lord Bischoff's abrupt assassination.

The ruler of the Thelian Empire was thunderstruck for several minutes, while his wife turned so deathly white at the news that the palace servants were kept in an uproar, fearing lest Her Majesty should fall into a fatal faint. When King Vince finally regained his power of speech, he let out a bull's roar that sent half the household scrambling for cover and even drew a brief wince from the newly-arrived Captain Shawn Michaels. Ordering that his valets and his queen were to leave the room immediately, King Vince closed the door so that only Shawn remained, and promptly went to work on unleashing his fury upon the hapless Imperial Guard leader.

* * *

At the same time, outside the Summer Palace, an exotically seductive young woman of obvious Asian heritage paused by the cluster of tall, fragrant trees growing gracefully by the platinum-gilt gates. Gail Kim broke into a wide smile as she looked across the arching driveway of magnolias and lindens leading up to the palace. On the other side of the road, a lovestruck boy of about thirteen stared in astonishment when the beautiful, dark-haired young woman unexpectedly vanished in the blink of an eye amidst a rustle of red velvet and a faint whisper of fragrant rose water.

* * *

"I'm not paying you and the other captains incomes of well over ten thousand a year just so you can look heroic in your splendid uniforms!" King Vince was still blustering inside the palace, his face turning a characteristic beet-red in color the way it always did when he was riled up about something. "Damn it, Captain Michaels, if you couldn't protect Lord Bischoff against even _one_ of those crazy women...!"

"Your Majesty, if I may be so bold as to say, it _was_ a tragic mistake on our part. However, the truth is that the Imperial Guards were never meant to be some sort of overglorified security team in the first place," Shawn hastily reminded his outraged king. "Our main purpose is to put down attempts at revolutions, and so far--"

"And so far you've all done a stupendous job at that, Captain," King Vince broke in irritably. "However, that doesn't change the fact that one of my most powerful allies is dead--because of the carelessness of one of _your_ men!"

Shawn grimaced.

"Are you planning to punish Captain Orton for his oversight?" he ventured quietly, after a few moments of tense silence.

"That young man has certainly had a colorful military career, hasn't he?" his king sardonically muttered instead, more to himself than to the First Captain of the Imperial Guards. "Captain Orton's father was actually a general for me back during the French-Thelian War, and I hardly remember him being quite so--"

King Vince never got to finish his sentence, for at that moment a shuriken_(1)_ flew through the window of the room, shattering the expensive, varicolored stained glass in the process as it sailed across the distance of the chamber and imbedded itself less than an inch from Shawn's left ear. The Imperial Guard leader, admirably enough on his part, hardly even flinched at this unexpected visitor. King Vince, on the other hand, nearly had a heart attack, as he let out a strangled gurgle of surprise before diving to hide under the relative safety of his heavy, ornately-carved rosewood desk.

Shawn bent his head to hide a growing smile of amusement at this undignified conduct from the sovereign of one of the most powerful empires in the world, concentrating instead on pulling out the sharp-tipped shuriken still buried in the wall.

"There's a note attached to the knife," he observed thoughtfully, gently unwrapping the parchment from where it had been tightly wound around the shuriken and taking care not to prick his fingers through his gloves on the pointed blade in case it might be poisoned. One just never knew with ninja. King Vince looked expectantly at the younger man as the latterskimmed over the brief note, his brows slanting together and his eyes growing darker and more troubled with each word he read.

When Shawn had finished reading, he straightened up to his full height and crumpled the piece of paper in his hands until it crackled and split into a hundred infinitesimal fragments. King Vince arched an eyebrow questioningly at his action, but Shawn, lost in thought, failed to catch this unsubtle movement on the part of his ruler, and continued to ponder over this latest turn of events.

_Looks like Orton's prediction turned out to be true after all,_ he thought darkly to himself. His hands clenched into fists, tightening with each passing second until his knuckles turned white, and he added silently, _Damn it! Damn ninja indeed!_

* * *

Hidden amongst the heart-shaped leaves and fragrant golden flowers of a majestic linden tree, Gail Kim, clad in her Kuro Kei attire, tilted her head upwards in the direction of the stained glass window her shuriken had broken through. After waiting a few seconds, she agilely swung down onto the grass below, stepping lightly around the tender green clovers and discarding pieces of her fighting garb as she walked.

Five minutes later, a striking, richly-dressed young lady in a daring velvet crimson gown and a matching plumed hat worn over one mischievous russet eye stepped out of the arbor and into a waiting brougham by the sidewalk.

"To the Queenston train station, please," Gail instructed the driver, her never-faltering smile brightening as she added, "I'll pay you twice your regular fare if you can get there by noon."

The driver looked a bit surprised by her apparently urgent need to get to the station, and asked carelessly as he brought down his whip on his horse and began a steady trot down the road, "Going somewhere important, lady?"

"Why yes. I have an appointment at Belmont College this evening that I simply must fulfill," Gail replied saccharinely.

* * *

_1. shuriken--a throwing dart_


	3. Chapter I: The Tempest Breaks

*A/N: All right guys, get your popcorns and your sodas ready, 'cause the first official chapter is a ridiculously long one. Hope it was worth the wait and that you all like it; keep an eye out in mid-to-late February for the second installment.* 

* * *

**Thirty-Six Hours Later, Thelian**

_The snows will be coming early this year,_ a lone man observed to himself, quietly shifting his weight as he lingered at the edge of the virgin forests on the outskirts of the city of Marina. Reasonably tall, lean of body and chiseled of physique, with longish bronze hair and distinguished, handsome features, the man soon stepped out of the shadows to reveal himself as none other than Shawn Michaels, the decorated captain of the First Troop of the Imperial Guards and a well-loved hero from the French-Thelian Wars of 1863. The rich maroon color and dull gold braiding of his velvet imperial coat blended in stealthily with the looming, menacing shapes of the tall black pines that rose above him like ancient, petrified monsters. However, the glint of the gold-hilted saber by his side canceled out the camouflaging effects of his darkly-colored Imperial Guards uniform, as Shawn continued to wait patiently at the rendezvous spot. He looked, for all intents and purposes, to have come alone. 

Suddenly, the faintest sound of rustling leaves--one which would have gone undetected by untrained ears--echoed across the vast forest, and Shawn barely had time to adjust his position or even blink when, out of seemingly nowhere, the slim, attractive shape of a woman swung down from a tree right in front of him. The Imperial Guard captain's only outwards indication of surprise was a slight backwards inclination, but inwardly Shawn's heart was struggling to calm itself after the surprise of the woman's highly unexpected and even more unorthodox entrance. As the kunoichi continued to hang upside down from the sturdy branch, her figure cloaked in a typical ninja nightsuit colored the black and scarlet tones of the Kuro Kei clan, Shawn took a few seconds to regain his composure, before clearing his throat and beginning to speak. 

"Good evening..." Here, his voice trailed off, uncertainty coloring his words as he tried to figure out a way to refer to the woman without insulting her dignity. He tried again, working to gather together the unshakable confidence he always exhibited before his troop.   
"Good evening, ma'am," Shawn started to say, but was cut off sharply as the woman finally leapt down from her inverted position on the tree to brusquely order, "I will thank you to call me Okashira, like my ninja do--just as I will oblige to calling you by the title your troops do, Captain Michaels." Shawn checked his impulse to counter every caustic word she'd spoken, then determinedly went on.   
"I apologize for my rudeness, Okashira," he continued, speaking with the cold courtesy that natives of Thelian were notorious for across Europe. "Unless I have wounded your feminine vanity in any other way, I trust we can now begin the peace talks?" He could almost sense the Okashira's eyes narrowed in a livid glare behind her exquisitely carved, white-jade tigress mask, but in the end was forced to grudgingly give her some credit when she spoke, tersely and in a carefully even voice, "Let us proceed, Captain." 

It was obvious by her expectant silence that she was waiting for him to go first, prompting Shawn to furtively sneak a sweeping glance of their surroundings--a glance which may or may not have gone unnoticed by the leader of Kuro Kei--as he began to recite the Imperial Guards' terms for compromise.   
"As you are aware, His Majesty the King can be a rather stubborn man, so first of all, I can't guarantee you anything," he started smoothly, and was answered with a stiff nod of the head.   
"I am well aware of Vincent the Second and his bullheadedness," the Okashira replied, a hint of venom lacing her frosty words.   
"In any way, I guarantee nothing," Shawn hastily repeated, pretending to not have noticed her malicious bitterness as he went on, "But I _can_ give you my word as a gentleman that I will arrange an audience with the House of Lords as soon as possible. There, I will propose more legal protection for women, children, and immigrants all over the empire, and will try my best to convince them to pass the necessary laws for such reforms." 

A pause.   
"What is your price for all this generosity?" the Okashira asked dryly. "Men aren't exactly famous for their unconditional altruism...least of all Thelian men." Shawn couldn't help but frown at this spiteful jab toward both him and those of his sex, but forced himself to keep a lid on his temper and continue.   
"In exchange, Kuro Kei will be disbanded, as can be expected," he replied firmly. "Its members will be sent to labor camps in the Thelian colony on the Grecian islands. There, they will serve their punishments over a ten-year period, after which His Majesty will personally grant them official pardons, and they can be rehabilitated into normal lives." 

Shawn finished speaking, and it was obvious by his tone of voice and his body language that he considered these terms to be final and non-negotiable, should Kuro Kei plan to accept them. Stony silence was his reply at first, and when the Okashira finally spoke, her voice was drenched with a blood-chilling hatred so powerful that it was almost tangible.   
"You irredeemable male chauvinist," she bit out acidly. "You and the rest of your sexist pigs can all go to the deepest circles of Hell, and take your one-sided peace treaty with you!" As Shawn instinctively took a step back, stunned by the unexpected viciousness of her verbal attack, the Okashira closed off her diatribe by declaring scornfully, "I should have known better than to trust a man to sympathize with a woman's fight!" 

It was obvious that by then the peace talks had deteriorated beyond repair, and the leader of Kuro Kei was only too happy to seal the deal--so to speak--as, with a nigh invisible flick of her wrist accompanied by a calm, throaty command of, "Die," she nearly buried a poisoned shuriken right into Shawn's throat. The Imperial Guards' First Captain managed to swing sideways and barely dodge the fatal blow, but in the process the poison-tipped dirk managed to slash his left shoulder as it whizzed past him and sailed instead into the prickly blackberry shrubs a few feet away. 

At the same time, a piercing whistle erupted throughout the seemingly slumbering forest, and the masculine, distinctive voice of the Imperial Guards' Second Captain, Chris Jericho, rang out loud and clear in a grim order.   
"Second Troop, attack!" the charismatic, golden-haired leader commanded, charging into plain view from behind a cluster of brambles where he'd been hiding in during the duration of the ill-fated peace talks. Following closely behind were some of the most prominent officers of the Second Troop of the Imperial Guards, while Shawn, staggering against a thick pine trunk and holding his injured left shoulder, instructed with as much authoritative strength as he could put into his voice, "First Troop, follow their lead." 

The okashira of Kuro Kei darted swift, calculating glances at the multitude of armed and uniformed Imperial Guards rushing towards her, and behind her carved tigress mask her mouth twisted up in an ironic sneer.   
"I thought the agreement was that both parties were to come alone," she reminded Shawn quietly, putting such cool dignity into her voice that for a moment the rushing troops faltered in their steps.   
"It was," Shawn replied, wincing as the effects of the poisoned shuriken began to creep into his veins. "However, with all due respect, _Okashira,_ I'm willing to bet my life that you didn't show up alone, either." The Okashira's eyes danced with vicious amusement, as she drawled, "And so you shall, Captain Michaels." 

Before she had even finished speaking, a series of rustling noises began emanating through the forest, causing both Shawn and Jericho to hold out their arms and signal for their troops to stop in mid-charge. As the faint, whispery hints of movement continued to radiate about, a wave of vigilant murmurs washed over the Imperial Guards, before the diminutive Rey Mysterio, who always seemed to display heightened senses during such emergencies, cried out while pointing at the trees above, "Over there!" His comrades followed his gaze, to find out that they were virtually surrounded from above by trained members of Kuro Kei's First and Third Attack schools.   
"Damn, those crazy ninja are everywhere," John Cena cursed in an incredulous voice, at the same time that Jericho tried to rally his troops by letting out a warrior cry of, "Soldiers, are we going to let ourselves be intimidated by a bunch of tree-loving women dressed in bed sheets and masks?!" The response was immediate, as male pride instantly gripped his men and they replied in unison, "Hell no, chief!" And before Shawn could even break into their victory yell by offering some cautionary words of advice, the members of the Second Troop had charged off and the battle officially began. 

Once fighting was initiated, Shawn had no choice but to order his troop into the skirmish as well, and soon the night that had begun with a peace talk seemed destined to end in a bitter battle. The two opposing sides clashed full-force, with power and advantages unevenly distributed amongst them. For, while the Imperial Guards had superior weaponry and more fighters on their side, the Kuro Kei ninja were constantly moving in and out of sight so that they were almost impossible to pin down for a clear shot. Jericho himself was currently engaged in a fierce duel against the Master of the First Attack, matching his slender, sharp-bladed rapier against her gleaming, wickedly curved twin scimitars. Several yards away, Shawn was struggling to fight back the painful, dizzying effects of the poison rapidly coursing through his bloodstream, and unsheathed his own sword to effectively keep three neko-te-and-dagger-wielding kunoichi at bay. 

The battle raged for several minutes, with neither side gaining a significant advantage over the other. As it wore on, Shawn's health began to visibly deteriorate with each passing minute, for his movements became slower, his aim less accurate, and his famously perfect defense had slipped to a point where his three adversaries had been able to get close enough to tear his maroon imperial coat and fawn-colored breeches to shreds. Several gashes now peered through the torn material of his uniform, angry red with blood, as he continued to fight the three relentless ninja, until the Okashira, clearly frustrated with her girls' inability to deal any serious damage to the Imperial Guard's top captain, drew out her own sword with an irate cry of, "Enough!" and stepped forward to fight him herself. The three kunoichi who'd been previously attacking Shawn obediently backed away and let their leader handle him by herself, scattering in various directions to take on other opponents. 

Shawn was breathing hard as he stepped up to his new adversary, both from the physical strain of combat as well as from fighting back the poison straining to shut his body down. Such was his physical state as he was forced to face off against the leader of Kuro Kei, but even so he was able to match every thrust and parry the Okashira could throw at him, until a severe paroxysm of nausea gripped and shook his entire frame and he nearly collapsed onto the ground. The Okashira saw her opening and mercilessly seized upon it, flying forward and knocking Shawn's saber out of his hands before kicking him so viciously in the mouth that he was sent flying onto his back several feet away.   
"Get up," she spat out contemptuously at his fallen form, beginning to advance with slow, menacing steps... 

...Until somebody unexpectedly emerged from the shadows to kick her sword right out of her hand. The Okashira swore to herself before lithely leaping back, as Rob Van Dam of the First Troop disengaged himself from his current fight and ran to save his injured leader. She glared down condescendingly at the young man as he positioned himself between Shawn and her, whipping out both his longsword and his ivory-handled pistols while coolly informing the ninja leader, "Try me on for size."   
"Then I see you're suicidal in addition to being stupid," the Okashira sneered arrogantly, supremely confident in her own prowess with her weapon. 

A few yards away, Lita had her hands full trying to oversee the detonations of several strategically-placed explosives while at the same time fending off a pair of relentless Imperial Guards. The fiery-haired master of Kuro Kei's Third Attack was able to barely repel two full-frontal shots from Second Troop officers Matt Hardy and Shane Helms, only to spot too late the maned and goateed form of Sean O'Haire inch out from amidst a cluster of raspberry brambles to take careful aim with an expensive English rifle.   
"Watch out for the sniper!" Lita started to holler, breaking into a sprint in an effort to save the ninja in greatest danger of being shot. However, her warning came too late, and Lita could only watch helplessly as two of her kunoichi narrowly escaped being gunned down by leaping to the sides. In the process, however, their legs were nicked by bullets, and the sudden burst of searing pain caused them to fall heavily onto the ground, scattering fistfuls of explosives and derringers in the process.   
"Master, what should we do?!" the nearest unharmed ninja cried, two of them supporting the injured girls as they ran up to their leader for help. Lita cursed the hand fate had dealt them, and after getting that out of her system, realized that with two gunshot victims on their hands, they had no choice but to retreat. In an instant, her mind was made up.   
"We'll use the Hyakurai-jui! Let's go!" Lita crisply fired off the order. 

Somehow, an unseen signal was exchanged between all the ninja--masters, kunoichi, and okashira alike. Somehow, a small wooden barrel was filled to the brim with explosives in a whirlwind of efficiency. Somehow, the fuse was lit, resulting in a fiery explosion that shook the entire forest to the core, causing all its inhabitants to totter on their feet, before digging their weapons into the ground to steady themselves. And, somehow, amidst all the smoke, fire, and confusion, Kuro Kei vanished into the night, as silently as they had arrived. 

When the smoke cleared up, Rob found himself defending his captain against an enemy who had long since departed, for the leader of Kuro Kei had simply disappeared sometime during the explosion, taking her deadly ninja with her. Only then did Jericho take the time to run over to the poisoned leader of the First Troop. The golden-maned Second Captain needed take only one look at Shawn's feeble condition to make up his mind, as he let out a piercing whistle and ordered authoritatively, "Retreat to Fort Marina! Van Dam, run for the nearest army doctor you can find! Everybody else, move it! We haven't got all night!" 

And thus the impromptu battle was ended in a draw, on a night when peace was supposed to have prevailed. 

* * *

**The Following Morning, Ellistaire, Capital of Thelian**

For an establishment that was supposed to be the first university for women in the Thelian Empire, Belmont College had certainly hired an architect who appeared to have indulged in the aethestics and the extravagantly fashionable when he designed it. The school itself lied on an expanse of seemingly boundless green acres, beginning in the outskirts of an evergreen forest and ending right at the shores of the sparkling blue Lake Carolina. The series of grand and majestic edifices which made up the college were fashioned after the Gothic and Queen Anne Revival styles of architecture, with each building boasting its share of mansard roofs, towers, and intricate stained glass. Such a splendid design belied the fact that it was, indeed, an institution of academics...and not an extravagant palace fit for a king. 

Inside, the college's décor was even more grandiose, for in each room there were arranged with painstaking attention to style richly-colored portières, luxurious satin seats, exotic plants growing out of jardinières, gorgeous Oriental vases, and heavy oil paintings. Students' desks were carved out of the finest cherry wood and upholstered with plush brocade and elaborately crocheted antimacassars, bay windows draped with heavy velvet over fluttering lace under-curtains graced virtually every room, delicate Chinese scrolls and authentic Rembrandts hung artfully on the walls, and the school library, with its expensive leather paneling and enormous glowing fireplace, boasted well over ten thousand books. 

At first glance, it was glaringly obvious that Belmont College was a school built solely for the aristocrats and the wealthy upper-class--the daughters of Thelian's politicians, of Axon's generals, and of Sieragona's plantation owners--backed by fantastically rich sponsors, populated by women who were all undeniably genteel ladies, who had all come from honorable families of old and proud pedigrees. Its teachers were demure maidens and respectable spinsters, its students were groomed to be sophisticated gentlewomen in the truest sense of the word, and since Belmont was virtually brimming with rich and pretty girls, there was never any shortage of dashing young men calling at the school--most of them from the nearby Imperial Guards Headquarters. 

But underneath the deceptively gorgeous veneer of elegance and chic and demurely doe-eyed young ladies, Belmont was as competitive a college as any male institution. It indiscriminately accepted students from all social classes--from the rich planter's daughter all the way down to the humblest scullery maid--and the common thread which bound this diverse group of women together was that all of them were, in addition to being deadly ninja by night, some of the best and brightest in the entire empire. Belmont's teachers, likewise, possessed the double threat of both brains and beauty. 

Among the faculty at the college, Professor Victoria Varon was notorious with her students for being as severe and sharp-tongued in the battlefield against the Imperial Guards as she was in the classroom with her own students. Naturally, the day following Kuro Kei's inconclusive battle at the Marina forests against the First and Second Troops proved to be no different.   
"On August 30th, 1813, civil war broke out in the empire, pitting Sieragona against the combined forces of both Thelian and Axon. This came as no great surprise, both back then _and_ right now, for hostilities had been mounting between the two sides for over ten years, due to Thelian and Axon wanting Sieragona to industrialize and the latter wishing to remain an unpolluted, agrarian kingdom," the smoldering, jet-haired Master of the First Attack was lecturing to her interested class, a heavy book cradled against her left arm, her right one raised to write the date down on the massive blackboard at the front of the room. The heavy skirts of her sable bombazine made a steady rustling sound as she paced back and forth at the head of the classroom, and her voice rose clearly over the whisper of her trained dress as she asked expectantly, "There's a popular misconception as to the true cause of the war, which lasted three-and-a-half years. Anybody know what it and the real reason are?" 

A soft voice floated over from the front row to reply in gentle, silky cadences, "Most people believe that the war was caused by the assassinations of the Duke and Duchess of Saint-Sault from Axon by a Sieragonian loyalist." A couple of students turned around to see who had answered, and soon identified the speaker as a svelte, delicately-built Chinese girl with fine, doll-like features and alabaster-white skin. She was dressed in a slim, chic, modestly décolleté Princess Line gown made of jade-green satin, cinched in at the waist with a dark emerald velvet sash and complemented by a pair of tiny chamois slippers laced at the ankles with looping black ribbons. Her luxuriant licorice-black locks were worn loose so that they tumbled delicately around her shoulders, while the fragrant sprig of sweet verbena tucked into her hair identified her as twenty-year-old Autumn Li, a prodigy in the First Attack and a sweet-tempered student at Belmont. Autumn offered a charming half-smile at her audience, before raising her voice a notch above her usual elegant whisper and continuing her explanation.   
"However, in truth Thelian and Axon had already decided four days earlier that Sieragona was going to modernize whether it wanted to or not," she further explained, "and merely needed an excuse to attack. The double assassinations of Lord and Lady Saint-Sault proved to be the perfect opportunity for them to declare war." 

"Very good, Autumn," Victoria spoke with the barest traces of approval in her voice, before continuing with her lesson. "Sieragona had three main generals who led the kingdom's Royal Army against the combined military forces of both Thelian and Axon. Out of this decorated trio of leaders, one stands out for defeating the Imperial Army's one-hundred-thousand troops with only sixty-five-thousand men at the single bloodiest battle of the war, the Battle of Castalan in July of 1814. This famous general--"   
"--Was in fact General Robert Orton, the grandfather of Captain Randy Orton, who coincidentally happens to be the current leader of the Third Troop of the Imperial Guards," a voice broke in languidly from the back, causing Victoria's spidery black eyebrows to slant sharply downwards while she seethed acidly, "In the future, I'll trust you to refrain from interrupting me while I'm lecturing, Maya." 

Pale and petite twenty-three-year-old Maya Shiranui merely leaned back in her seat and smirked at this acute reprimand, and the cat-like effect of her lazily graceful poise was enhanced by her sharp feline features and glittering green eyes, which suddenly sparked to life at the possibility of conflict. Her long, whip-straight hair was so dark that it appeared an unnatural shade of blue, tied tightly together into a high ponytail with an ornate sapphire-studded silver pin fashioned after the elaborate Eastern styles. Her slinky indigo sheath boasted both a plunging, shockingly low-cut neckline and a fit that was on the borderline of being too snug to be considered appropriate, while the black cuirasse bodice of her dress wrapped firmly around her torso to perfectly show off her hourglass figure. Maya replaced her previous smirk with a look of maddening artlessness on her deceptively frail, fragile-looking face--a face which had led many men to their deaths--before answering with exaggerated innocence, "Pardon my rudeness for interrupting you, Professor Varon, but if you'll just check your history book, you'll see that all of my information is perfectly sound." Victoria fumed under her overconfident student's leisurely retort, her dark eyes snapping fire and her chest heaving with anger beneath her tightly-laced corset, before she remarked with an odd, curve-lipped semi-sneer, "In that case, I'm sure you won't mind researching 'perfectly sound information' on Thelian's role in the Crusades, will you, Maya? Let us continue with our lesson." 

Autumn shifted slightly in her seat to shoot a sympathetic look in the outraged-looking Maya's direction, who, after opening her mouth to protest and reluctantly changing her mind at her friend's gentle yet warning look, forced herself to swallow her indignant anger with poor grace and resigned herself to going through the remainder of the class in silence. Victoria, for her part, seemed to have forgotten her conflict against Maya, and had returned to her lecture.   
"The opening battle of the war took place in Heatherton Falls, Sieragona, one-hundred-and-twenty miles from its capital of Queenston," she spoke. "However, newspapers across the empire renamed it the Battle of Beaufort, alarming countless people in that city, who responded by refugeeing elsewhere. Annis, can you tell us why the papers would purposely publish false information as to the battle's location?" 

The history professor's words were directed toward Annis Clough, a strikingly tall young woman of twenty-seven years of age who didn't seem to be paying quite as much attention to the lesson as she ought to have been. Slender and shapely, with smooth olive skin and long, straight, jet-black hair pulled back into a sleek, shoulder-length ponytail, the ivory-organdie-clad Annis was a girl well-known with her peers for her easygoing pertness, her gentle smirk, and her absolute tenacity in battle. She snapped up abruptly at Victoria's words, subtly closing her book on a small photograph of Second Troop leader Chris Jericho...a photograph upon which she'd been doodling a pointy black beard and silly tufts of ear hair.   
"Erm...why the newspapers changed the Battle of Heatherton Falls to the Battle of Beaufort, you mean?" she repeated guiltily, praying that she'd gotten Victoria's question right. Fortunately for Annis, good fortune seemed to be smiling on her that day, for at her history professor's curt nod, she went on to explain, "Oh, I know the reason. It's because Beaufort is a French name, and if there was anything that all three kingdoms of the empire still had in common at the time of the war, it was their anti-French sentiments, which were fueled by Europe's combined clashes against Napoleon Bonaparte. Newspaper owners knew that changing the location of the battle to a city that would inevitably link itself to the French would further evoke hatred amongst the people, and as a result sell more papers." 

Victoria frowned in grudging admiration at her student's knowledge.   
"That is correct, Annis," she said, while thinking silently to herself as she swept her students in a long, thoughtful look, _I can't contest to their personalities, but as to their minds, it's no wonder that Belmont's known as one of the top schools in the empire._

* * *

Gail Kim, professor of mathematics at Belmont, enjoyed a somewhat less fearsome reputation than the darkly bewitching master of Kuro Kei's First Attack. Granted, the mischievous Korean import taught one of the hardest classes--and, by default, one of the most loathed classes as well--at the college, but the spirited brunette always lightened the mood of her lessons with amusing anecdotes, most of them about matching wits against men. Plus, Gail always had indisputably fabulous taste in clothes, and was never stingy about sharing the newest fashions and trends from Paris with her students. 

On the day following the ill-fated peace talks with the king's men, the atmosphere in Gail's classroom was ostensibly no more somber than on any other day. The youthful professor herself was at the front of the room, looking as stylishly pretty as always in her bold crimson gown and fragrant rose water cologne as she wrote down a series of problems on the black board.   
"All right, let's say we have the equation _1/(sec y+1)-1/(sec y-1). _How would you simplify this problem?" she was saying as she wrote it down in white chalk. "Any ideas on how to do it?" A stretch of silence followed her words, as Gail swept her class with an expectant russet glance.   
"Anybody have any ideas at all on how to do this...Come on, girls, don't be such silly chickens, I know you all know how to do this," Gail demanded playfully from her class. Finally, a slender arm half-rose from the neat rows of carved cherry desks, and Gail called gratefully on the student it belonged to, "Yes, Rune. Glad to know you're brave enough to tackle this problem." 

Rune Angelo gave an obliging chuckle following her professor's light-hearted compliment, knowing that it wasn't bravery but extensive studying which had prompted her to try her hand at solving the problem. She was a fairly tall girl of twenty-two years of age--almost too tall to be considered genteel, for it was a carefully concealed fact that she would actually tower an inch or two over some men if they didn't wear subtly heeled boots--with a flawless, creamy complexion and bright, crystal-blue eyes. Her luxuriant dark blonde hair, when let out of its trademark elegant up-do adorned with pale pink snapdragons, flowed all the way down to the middle of her back, while her expensive golden-orange moiré dress with its rose-patterned train and her even costlier diamond jewelry served as a testament to her social position as the daughter of a prominent Sieragonian family. Rune cleared her throat, mentally assessing the problem on the blackboard in front of her, before answering in a clear, confident voice, "You multiply the first fraction by _(sec y-1)_ and the second fraction by _(sec y+1)_ to get a common denominator. After that, it's just a matter of subracting the two fractions and canceling out positive _sec y_ and negative _sec y_ to get a negative two in the numerator."   
"Very good, Rune," Gail praised genially as she wrote out the steps the tall blonde had dictated, ending up with a new equation of _-2/sec²y-1_ on the blackboard. After she had finished mapping out the numbers, symbols, and letters, the lithe, dark-haired young woman turned to her class and asked expectantly, "Anybody know what should be done next?" 

The calm, coolly polite voice that answered her question didn't come from Rune, but rather, from a student who, up till then, hadn't uttered a single word throughout the entire morning.   
"One has to be familiar with the Pythagorean equation _tan²x+1=sec²x_ in order to further simplify the problem," Hikari Tsukino answered steadily, exuding as always an air of perfect, aristocratic femininity. Sylph-like and delicate, with a never-fading aura of classic grace, the twenty-three-year-old Asian exchange student possessed a fragile, quiet beauty--the standard beauty of genteel Eastern women of noble birth, one which didn't pain itself with advertising its splendor. The velvety darkness of her long black hair and blueberry-black eyes was accentuated by her oleander-white skin, while her attire and deportment were proudly and traditionally Asian. She always stood out rather appreciably from the other girls in their rainbow-bright crinolines and lacy shawls, for Hikari's trademark outfit was a gossamer black silk kimono, decorated with an embroidered dull gold Japanese dragon on one side and tied with a matching gold sash around the waist. A ruby-encrusted mother-of-pearl hair pin, carved on one end in the likeness of a rose bloom, kept her inky hair elegantly swept atop her head, while a long, trailing crème scarf, fringed with slender strings of tiny white pearls, completed the portrait of aristocratic refinement.   
"In this case," Hikari went on in a voice drenched with cold formality--for it was a noted fact that she resented Gail in some way or another, both as a leader and as a professor--"you merely replace _sec²y-1_ with _tan²y,_ and simplify the equation to _-2/tan²y, _which in turn becomes _-2cot²y."_

Gail signified with a curt nod of her head that Hikari was correct, and the fact that she failed to accompany this gesture with the same graciously complimentary words which Rune had received failed to go unnoticed by a single girl in the classroom.   
"Well, I see that it's almost time for your next class--" Here, Gail spared a brief glance at the chrome-and-black-walnut clock set high on the wall--"so I won't be keeping you for long. Don't forget to study for your big trigonometric identities exam tomorrow..." A wave of good-natured groans rose from the students at this reminder, causing their professor to break into a charming smile and reply teasingly, "Don't give me those looks, I'm not doing this out of pure vindictiveness!" Hikari resisted the unladylike temptation to roll her eyes heavenwards and mutter something unflattering under her breath, while her professor continued, "And I'll be more than happy to disclose the types of questions that will be asked on the exam, if Miss Maras in the corner will be so kind as to oblige to put her book down and listen." 

At this trenchant statement, the whispery sounds of rustling silk splashed across the classroom, as girls carefully smoothed down their voluminous skirts so that they might turn around in their seats and peek at the disgraced student who'd been caught reading in class. The young woman in question, a sultry, albeit somewhat tomboyish twenty-three-year-old by the name of Ishiekah Maras, reluctantly placed down her heavy hardcover copy and glanced up with piercing hazel eyes. With her willowy figure sheathed in slim-fitting midnight-black and her long, curly chestnut hair twisted tightly into a chignon at the back of her head, the aloof kunoichi often gave the impression of an ever-alert panther, projecting a façade of languor while inwardly getting ready to pounce. Ishiekah worked to hide a frown of mild displeasure as Gail walked up to her desk and retrieved the book that had held her student's attention during class, flipping across the pages before finally turning the volume over and looking at its cover.   
_"Le Comte de Monte Cristo,"_ she read in lilting French, running a hand over the title's lettering while remarking, "In its original, untranslated version, I see. Quite impressive, Miss Maras; I didn't know you were this fluent in French."   
"I am," Ishiekah grunted tersely, signifying by the tone of her voice that she clearly didn't wish to further continue this chat.   
"And I suppose Monsieur Dumas's story of revenge is far more interesting than my lessons in trigonometry?" Gail prompted.   
"I happen to like vengeance," Ishiekah conceded grudgingly. 

Before anybody could reply, the low, resonant sounds of tolling bells interrupted the impromptu teacher-student chat, causing Gail to start up and turn around vaguely in the direction of the closed classroom doors. She sighed and reluctantly set the edition down on her pupil's desk with a warning murmur of, "We'll discuss this later, Ishiekah. In the meantime, you'd better get ready for your next class." Ishiekah nodded stiffly as she and the rest of the students carefully got out of their seats, gathering up their books and loose papers and arranging their sashaying silk skirts around them before filing in a neat, orderly row out of the classroom, curtsying politely to their professor on their way out. 

* * *

The stables of Belmont, constructed by the shore of the iridescently cerulean Lake Carolina, held well over a hundred powerful stallions and spirited young mares, with a new brood of feisty colts joining the corral every year. While Victoria was lecturing on wars and Gail was confiscating popular novels, Lita, riding high with the honor of being the most decorated horsewoman in the empire's capital, had taken a couple of the horses out of their stalls for the day's lesson in equestrianism. The riding instructor's number of students was visibly diminished on that day, undoubtedly due to the fact that it was her who that had taken the brunt of the previous night's spontaneous skirmish. However, this seemed to have little effect on the fiery redhead's mood, for she merely poured extra attention and support to the few students who _were_ able to make it to her class. 

And the students present did need her attention and support--some a bit more than they'd like to admit. As much as Lita hated acknowledge any shortcomings her own kunoichi might have, she was nevertheless a fairly honest person--or about as honest as a ninja could possibly be--and had to own up that when it came to horsemanship, her students were a long way from matching up against Randy Orton's Third Troop. _It's not that they're unwilling to learn,_ the flame-haired fire and explosives specialist thought reflectively to herself as she watched the girls atop their spirited mounts, before glancing down at her own simply-tailored, dark emerald dimity riding habit and thinking amusedly to herself, _It's just that young girls like them are more concerned with looking pretty than with actually handling their horses!_

Isabella Walker, poised with refined grace atop a dainty strawberry mare, proved Lita's silently-argued point to a perfection. The tall, olive-complexioned twenty-three-year-old looked like virtually the ideal horsewoman as she sat on her mount, sidesaddle as was befitting of ladies, her dancing skirts tucked demurely around her long legs. She wore a finely made crinoline with satiny sea-green skirts and a deep rose basque lined with princess lace, while a matching coral-colored hat made of glossy, smooth tarlatan was perched smartly atop the crown of her shoulder-length, heavily layered midnight-black hair. Under any other circumstances, Lita would have been proud of her sapphire-eyed student's ability to maintain the fairer, softer aspects of youth and femininity even as she rigged fields with land mines or carried out arson missions...but now! The older kunoichi silently groaned, watching none too pleasedly as Isabella preoccupied herself with adjusting her expensive crinoline and allowed her reins to slacken, letting her mare veer inexcusably off-path. 

Isabella glanced up just in time to see the reproving frown on her leader's face, and guiltily resumed control of her horse while laughingly calling out at the redhead, "Come on, Lita, twenty-eight's not the time yet to be getting all old and decrepit! Surely you can't tell me that you've already forgotten how much fun dressing up and looking your prettiest used to be!" Lita smirked to herself; it was impossible trying to admonish girls when they were wearing a new dress and hat.   
"Watch who you're calling old and decrepit, Isabella--in five years you'll twenty-eight as well," she opted for shooting back, while Isabella laughed and, as though to demonstrate that she could still ride reasonably well even in all her crinoline and tarlatan glory, shook the reins of her horse and trotted off.   
"Not true!" she called back, adding proudly, "I'm going to be a belle even when I'm thirty, you just watch!" Lita shook her head at this playful boast, then winced as, in a moment of carelessness, Isabella had to swerve wildly to narrowly avoid crashing into a row of trees with heavy low-hanging branches. _That girl's impossible..._

...But then again, it wasn't as if nineteen-year-old Elizabeth Hawkins was proving to be a much better equestrian on her dainty, silk-maned cremelo. The young, petite Sieragonian certainly made a pretty picture atop her horse, with her smooth, creamy skin, lustrous mahogany-colored hair, and piercing jewel-green eyes. Her moderately curvy figure was cloaked in a slim-fitting organdie of the palest violetish-magenta color, finely fringed with silk at the hems of the skirt and sleeves and topped off by a tastefully slender wreath of alyssum blooms around her tiny waist.   
"You look beautiful, Elizabeth," Lita called out generously, earning a beaming smile from the diminutive nineteen-year-old...a smile which quickly began to morph into a scowl as soon as its owner heard the next words to come out of her riding instructor's mouth.   
"However, Kuro Kei ninja are expected to be at the very least passable equestrians, and you'll hardly be able to bring down even _one_ of Captain Orton's cavalrymen if you're too preoccupied with looking cute to bother learning how to make jumps!"   
"Lita, you know that's not true!" Elizabeth protested fiercely. "I can ride just as well as Randy Orton himself--as long as I'm in my nightsuit, anyway. You see, this is a new dress, and I don't want to get it dirty and torn before the hunting season has even started!" 

Lita merely shook her head at this excuse, thinking with silent mirth as she rode away on her red stallion and jumped gracefully over a series of split-oak fences, _Young girls are all impossible. They've got more excuses for showing off their new clothes and coiffures than I've got explosives hidden away!_

* * *

Presiding at the front of Belmont's biology classroom, Professor Trish Stratus was simultaneously browsing through a heavy science book while writing down the day's lesson plans on the blackboard with gritty white chalk. It was apparent that whatever activity the young doctor and part-time biology professor had planned required some sort of dirty work, for she had changed out of her usual glossy sky-blue challis gown and replaced it with a plain lavender calico frock, adding a heavily quilted white pinafore over her outfit as an added precaution.   
"As I'm sure you're all well aware of, I've been making you read tedious anatomy texts for months now...so now I've decided that it's about time we look at the real thing," the sunny blonde mentioned affably as her class began. Observing the class of daintily-dressed girls poised with books and pens, Trish added as a corner of her mouth went up in an impish grin, "I'm a bit disappointed that nobody paid much attention yesterday, however, when I instructed all of you to wear your oldest frocks today, since my lesson will be rather unorthodox, I expect." 

Kyra Andrews shyly raised her hand from the front row. On the surface, the petite kunoichi appeared to be nothing more than a tiny, sleek twenty-six-year-old with deep brown eyes and chocolate-colored hair cut in a chic, whip-straight style with a side sweep fringe. Kyra had straightened up in slight alarm when her professor mentioned the necessity of wearing old and faded clothes to class on that particular day, especially since the lithe brunette was currently dressed in a finely-tasseled, lace-trimmed iridescent crinoline that was as white and gossamer as snowdrop petals. To confirm her fears, Kyra had meekly lifted one arm, and as soon as Trish had nodded in her direction, she proceeded to ask, "Professor Stratus? What exactly do you mean by this unorthodox lesson that will require old frocks?" Trish grinned cheerily.   
"Oh, it's nothing to worry about, Kyra," she joked. "Just a couple of jolly old cadavers who are not-so-happily awaiting dissection and close analysis by my students." 

Kyra went ashen at that casually-spoken revelation about cutting apart another human being--particularly a dead one--and was shocked into petrified silence for several seconds. When she finally ventured to speak again, Kyra stammered, looking rather ill as she stumbled over her excuse, "I...I don't believe I'm feeling too well, Professor Stratus...I..." Part of the reason why the sensitive, obedient young woman had so willingly trained for the Fourth Attack school of Kuro Kei was because it would enable her to assassinate targets with swift and clean efficiency--no gore and very little, if any blood at all. Just an arsenic-laced meal here and a poison-tipped dart there, certainly none of the slicing and dicing that the First Attack kunoichi were only too happy to carry out.   
"Don't be silly, Kyra," Trish laughed off Kyra's uneasiness. "You'll never become a good doctor if you only bury your nose in books and never experience the real thing. Besides--" 

The sound of the classroom doors quietly opening and closing interrupted Trish's little motivational speech, and soft footsteps tapped across the floor and toward an empty desk. Trish broke off to shoot a stern look at the culprit, a tardy student who turned out to be one of the most brilliant strategists in the clan by the name of Inoue Sonoko. Small yet lissome, with porcelain-white skin and storm-gray eyes, the half-Japanese, half-Anglo-Saxon twenty-year-old was, as usual, heavily clothed in layers of excessive garments, as though to consciously hide her mixed Asian/Caucasian heritage. Her unnaturally pale complexion was perfectly concealed beneath a voluminous, plainly designed seafoam-blue muslin frock, bordered by a Spartan trim of lightly-tinted Irish lace and topped with a basque that buttoned all the way up to her slender neck. Even though she was indoors, Sonoko still wore her trademark pale turquoise bonnet pulled low over her long jet-black hair, which served a double purpose of both tidily keeping her luxuriant locks in place as well as concealing her uniquely biracial features in shadows. 

Sonoko calmly arranged her skirts in place and took out her books and papers, while Trish glared down with clear annoyance at her lateness and drawled sarcastically, "I'm glad you could join us, Sonoko. Why only the ten-minute delay this time?" Sonoko met her professor's irritated look with a steady gaze, replying laconically, "I had plans this morning." Trish rolled her eyes.   
"It would be best for you to redo your schedule, Sonoko," she started to admonish, "so that you might be allowed to attend your classes on time..." 

Before Trish could continue, Terri, the college administration's head secretary, entered the room and broke in apologetically, "I hope I wasn't interrupting anything important, but I've come to inform you all that a couple of our generous backers have arrived for an arbitrary tour of the school they helped erect." Trish sighed in clear displeasure at this unwelcome piece of news, before nodding toward the tiny blonde secretary and thanking with admirable grace, "Good work on reporting the news so quickly, Terri," and going to the blackboard to erase what she'd initially written and replacing it with a new outline.   
"Change of plan, ladies," she announced. "Instead of a, ah, closer examination of the human anatomy, you'll be analyzing cell structures with a microscope today. Be grateful that your outfits won't be ruined, but remember to wear your most unflattering frocks tomorrow, because with any luck, those pompous men will have tired of bothering us by then and we'll be able to continue with today's initial lesson plan." 

Terri looked somewhat discomforted at this brisk order.   
"Ah, Trish?" she finally spoke up. "Today's visitors are actually all members from the empire's House of Lords--I believe among them Lord Flair and his son." Trish sighed, reluctantly turning around and erasing what she'd just written.   
"In that case, we'll be going over the animal kingdom today," she improvised, then catching her students' mounting indignation--particularly Sonoko's thunderous glower and Kyra's uncertain frown--reminded the class sternly, "Remember this, ladies: some men may be liberal enough to claim that they like smart women, but there's only so much knowledge and prowess that they'll tolerate in the opposite sex before they start feeling that their male egos are being challenged by girls who are too smart. Right now, we can't afford to have anybody--least of all the House of Lords--start getting suspicious about Belmont." When the girls grudgingly relaxed their postures and signified their agreement, Trish turned to the school secretary and plastered on her phoniest bright smile while instructing, "Send the gentlemen in, Terri." 

* * *

Located in the heart of Ellistaire, the Imperial Guards' headquarters building was, in fact, a vast, sprawling castle named Ashburn Park, built by a sixteenth-century king back during the days when Thelian consisted of nothing more than a cluster of tiny warring territories. A long avenue of majestic oaks surrounded the flight of winding white steps leading up to the castle, which was constructed out of whitewashed stones and boasted well over twenty-five hundred chambers. Among the more unique features of Ashburn Park was a small Roman Catholic church, no doubt installed by an ancient master during the years when Protestantism was first spreading throughout Europe. Out of respect for religion, this church hadn't been torn down and redesigned in a more military-worthy fashion, and in fact soon proved itself to be quite a place of spiritual solace to wounded Imperial Guards, many of whom were Catholics. 

However, aside from that holy place, the rest of Ashburn wasn't spared from militarization. Rose gardens were converted into training grounds, little wooded hills were cleared away and transformed into sharpshooting and archery practice fields, and orchards cut down to make room for the stables which would house the innumerable boisterous horses of the Third Troop. Art museums that had previously only seen obsolete armaments of centuries long gone had been cleared of their priceless displays and reconstructed into storehouses for the most modern weaponry in all of Europe...In fact, just about the only room in the castle that had been spared, aside from the church, was the expansive ballroom, since many officers in the Imperial Guards wanted at least _one_ place in headquarters that would be charming enough to woo the ladies. 

The other rooms in the castle had obviously been decorated to best show off the might of the Imperial Guards. Gleaming sabers with gold filigree handles and dueling pistols inlaid with mother-of-pearl were crossed strikingly on the walls, regal flags with thick gold tassels draped tastefully across every arching atrium, and grandiose watercolors depicting glorious battle scenes hung in many a room. Not a day went by that the sight of armed and uniformed officers didn't pass busily down the the hallways while on their way to strenuous, never-ceasing drilling, handsomely uniformed, resplendent in velvet imperial coats and tall varnished boots, and armed with the finest weapons to be found in all of Thelian. 

On the day following the brief Battle of Marina, all three troops of the Imperial Guards could be found practicing even more intensely than usual, perhaps in anticipation of a second encounter against Kuro Kei, perhaps because their failure to disable the ninja clan had spurred their captains to kick up the usual training process. 

Out of all the leaders, First Captain Shawn Michaels was undeniably the most empathic of the trio of men. It was painfully obvious to any bystander that the decorated war-hero-turned-Imperial-Guard was still feeling the effects of the previous night's poisoning, for the usual spring was gone from his light tread, and he paused occasionally to steady himself against a post and wait for the sporadic attacks of pain and dizziness to fade away. However, despite the intermittent paroxysms, Shawn fought through his illness and continued to tirelessly coach his troop, pausing frequently by each young man to either correct his stance or give him some helpful pointers. Frequently by his side was First Lieutenant Luke Hayden Maddox, a tanned, sandy-haired youth of twenty-six clad in the typical burgundy-coat-and-fawn-breeches uniform of the First Troop. Tall and clean-shaven, with solid good looks, Luke worked side-by-side with his leader, often sacrificing his own training time to watch over Shawn whenever the latter indicated by a slight wavering that he wasn't feeling too well. 

Unlike the efficient and dedicated First Troop of the Imperial Guards, however, the Second Troop was far from being as harmonious or as professional. The officers in that division were drilling at a reasonable enough pace, most of them practicing dueling with short-bladed weapons such as smallswords and cutlasses. Unfortunately for them, their captain, Chris Jericho, seemed far more concerned with demonstrating how much better he was than his students than in actually critiquing and helping improve their performances. Currently, Jericho was going down the rows of Second Troop officers, barking at each and every single one of them about how much better his own swordsmanship and marksmanship were, how they could never possibly hope to match his own superior skills at the rate they were slothing along, and how fabulously dashing he looked in his sleek charcoal-gray imperial coat, cream-colored cravat, and fawn trousers. 

Jericho reluctantly stopped rambling about the wonders that were the Second Captain of the Imperial Guards when he paused by the only female member of his troop, a tall, statuesque brunette with ivory skin and somber hazel eyes.   
"Thayar, you're fighting like a girl," he criticized haughtily, causing nineteen-year-old Nicola Thayar to glare daggers at her leader. Her willowy figure, hidden beneath a gray Second Troop uniform tailored more slimly to fit the feminine shape, automatically positioned itself into a fighting stance, but the gesture went unnoticed by Jericho, who continued to nag, "I never _did_ know what His Majesty saw in you to give you a spot in my troop, but if you're going to be an Imperial Guard, the first thing you'll have to do is start holding your sword like a man." A flash of anger flickering across Nicola's impassive gold-flecked eyes was the only indication that Jericho's words had stung her, before she bowed stiffly and replied, "As you wish, Captain." She then proceeded to clench onto her samurai sword with an iron grip and use it to cleave a nearby tree trunk neatly in half with a single lightning-fast slash, narrowly avoiding decapitating Jericho by less than an inch in the process. 

The very force of her arching cut created a gust of wind that whipped Jericho's long blonde hair around his face, while Nicola asked in a cold deadpan, "Is that a manly enough hold for you, sir?" Jericho, frozen in place by the initial shock of her unexpected slash, failed to reply for several seconds. When he finally regained his power of speech, no amount of chivalry toward women instilled in him since babyhood was able to prevent the dashing Second Captain from unleashing a furious verbal attack against his maverick trainee.   
"Are you crazy, you sanctimonious little bi--" he started to rant, before Third Captain Randy Orton, passing by on his black stallion, called out laughingly, "Watch your language, Your Mighty Blondeness, that's no way to talk to ladies...even those who prefer to wear pants and carry around weapons." And as he rode past the two, Randy tossed a playful wink at Nicola, who answered both his overture and Jericho's upbraiding with the same expressionless, blank stare. 

Randy, for his part, soon left the two behind as he returned to his Third Troop, who'd gathered by the far end of the courtyard. Most of the officers were practicing horsemanship and sharpshooting diligently enough; however, their illustrious young leader seemed far more interested in the very few females in his division than in actually training his cadets.   
"You're looking divine today, Miss Molly," Randy was saying charmingly to a petite, dark-haired young woman, flashing her his famous white smile--or smirk, rather--as he added somewhat ungallantly, "Especially considering how you aren't even wearing a corset like proper ladies do. Not that there's anything wrong with it; after all, women who choose to join the Imperial Guards are hardly expected to make first-class fighters while trying to maintain the perfect hourglass shape at the same time." Molly frowned at this rather dubious compliment, before replying in a clipped tone, "In that case, since I seem to have unsexed myself according to your standards by joining this troop, then I'll ask you to please call me Officer Holly, sir. It's hardly common for a leader to be on a first-name basis with his subordinates." 

Randy shrugged and merrily trotted off on his horse, deciding to himself that Molly was probably just being modest, when he noticed out of the corner of his eye that one of the members of his Third Troop who'd been practicing death-defying jumps with her white horse had abruptly stopped during his brief chat with Molly and was now observing him keenly from afar. Randy frowned in puzzlement, reining in his own mount and turning it around just in time to catch twenty-two-year-old Gabrielle LeNoir quickly and abashedly drop her eyes to the ground. Smirking easily to himself, Randy rode up to the athletically-built young woman who was, second to him only, the best equestrian in the troop. She was certainly an attractive girl, with her long, wavy ash-blonde hair and expressive blue-gray eyes, and Randy wondered why he hadn't noticed her up until then. Gabrielle's mouth dropped slightly open at his approach, and she hastily turned her horse around as if to flee, but Randy soon caught up to her with an easy gallop and spoke flirtatiously, "Don't tell me my very presence scares you, Miss Gabrielle...or would you prefer that I call you Officer LeNoir?" 

Gabrielle looked hesitant, like part of her still wanted to run away. It wasn't everyday that men flirted with her...or with any of the other female members of the Imperial Guards, for that matter. Apparently, the idea of a woman wielding arms--some with greater prowess than the average male--was an offensive, often times intimidating notion. Ever since she'd joined the Imperial Guards, Gabrielle had watched gentlemen everywhere pass over her and instead flock to girls who were far less beautiful than she, shower them with gallantries and worship them like goddesses simply because they were coy, doe-eyed, and could not tell the difference between a broadsword and a rapier. Now faced for the first time with a young man who didn't seem daunted by a strong woman, Gabrielle could only mutter with poor polish, "Far be it for me to challenge your authority, Captain Orton; you may call me whatever's appropriate." 

Randy grinned at her unwittingly inviting words, but before he could make his second move, a royal courier dashed breathlessly into the orderly rows of Imperial Guards, catching everybody's attention with his intrusion. Ignoring the hardly subtle looks of curiosity that followed his every move, the young messenger scuttled over to Shawn and, without bowing, began to inform him nervously, "Sir, His Majesty has requested a private conference with all the captains of the Imperial Guards' three troops, regarding what happened last night." Shawn swore softly under his breath, mulling over the news before beckoning Luke over and instructing briskly, "In that case, call the troops to order." Luke nodded.   
"Yes, Captain," he replied obediently, striding purposefully toward the scattered troops and blowing piercingly on his whistle to catch their interest. "ATTEN-TION!" Invariably, the rest of the Imperial Guards paused in mid-action, most of the Third Troop being forced to dismount their horses in order to obey. Shawn strode up briskly to the front and cleared his throat before speaking.   
"I am pleased with all the progress you have made for today," he praised laconically, then gave the terse order, "You're hereby dismissed for the rest of the day." 

A confused murmur rippled across the ranks as they pondered over why their training was being cut short, before John Cena, evidently the ring-leader of quite a clique within the ranks, called out wickedly, "Hey, now, what are we standing around nitpicking for? If I remember correctly, all those single ladies at Belmont should be getting out of their classes around this time of the day!" An approving, rowdy whoop rose from the young men, and Randy and Jericho, who'd previously seemed intent on lashing out at Shawn for taking over as leader of their own troops as well, paused in mid-step and instead turned around to join their Belmont-bound boys. Shawn gaped in disbelief at the two's action, furiously stalking over to the captains of the Second and Third Troop and hissing, "Haven't you got any sense at all? His Majesty plans to confer with the captains of the Imperial Guards--that means all three of us! You can chase after women later." Randy and Jericho winced simultaneously at the First Captain's verbal barrage, before reluctantly following after Shawn and the courier and whining all the way to the waiting coach that would take them to King Vince's Royal Palace. Fed up with the two's childish griping and grumbling, Shawn decided to ride out front with the driver, but before the coach doors were closed after the other two captains, he could distinctly hear Jericho disclose something to Randy that sounded suspiciously like, "Oh, well, at least that Princess Stephanie Marie is a beauty--sometimes, anyway--so as long as _she's_ there..." 


	4. Chapter II: Message via Bird of Prey

Early fall was a time when Nature lovingly prepared Her children for the long, silent months of wintry death ahead, until such a time came when the light footsteps of Persephone could be heard again, bringing with her the warmth and joy of spring that would melt the pearl-white snow and once again breathe fresh life into flowers and trees across the earth. Out of all these delicately beautiful fall seasons in the Thelian Empire, none were more picturesque than the ones that the city of Ellistaire enjoyed. Already, the leaves on many a tall, majestic tree were beginning to turn a rainbow of rich burgundies and saffrons, setting themselves apart from the evergreens which proudly remained the color of Irish clovers all year round. Crystalline blue lakes looked almost iridescent set against the tranquil background of fading greenery, for without the competition of blooming, bright-as-silk flowers, their waters were allowed to shimmer more luminously than usual. 

It was this charming, scenic view that Autumn Li found herself gazing at shortly after class dismissals at Belmont. Standing in front of the bay window in her room with the thick, moss-green brocade drapes pushed aside, the ethereal girl was trying to brush her hair while at the same time observing a rather amusing feud between two warring families of bluejays and robins trying to claim control of the tall peach tree by her window. Unexpectedly, a sudden chill breeze swept through the air, not only tousling Autumn's long, licorice-colored locks but at the same time carrying with it a sound alien to this peaceful environment--the bloodcurdling cry of a bird of prey. As the anxious bluejays and robins scattered for safety and Autumn glanced up in the general direction of the scream, a peregrine falcon abruptly dived out of the sky, both graceful and terrifying at the same time, its wings fluttering briskly as it continued to shriek its trademark call. 

Below, a sparkle of recognition flashing across Autumn's dark brown eyes momentarily betrayed her reaction, before her features subtly shifted themselves into a well-trained, carefully blank mask. For, she recognized this rare bird, even as it landed in front of her and perched itself onto her windowsill with the dignified poise of a predator. Gently setting down her brush, Autumn stretched out one hand to allow the falcon to hop onto her arm, its sharply curved claws digging unmindfully into the smooth texture of her jade-colored Princess gown. Ignoring the damage that the messenger bird was doing to her sleeve, Autumn carefully detached a rolled-up note it was carrying and smoothed out any creases, before settling down in an overstuffed velvet seat and beginning to read. 

Two minutes later, the double French doors to Autumn's room were slammed wide open and a svelte figure in pale green satin began careening toward the atrium in a highly unladylike manner, face whiter than marble, features taut with tension, voice raised in a cry of, "Professor Varon!"

* * *

  


The cherished Royal Palace in the heart of Thelian's capital was well-known both for its dazzlingly extravagant décor as well as for its excellent view. However, currently seated inside the impressive, mahogany-paneled conference room that King Vince liked to keep as his office, none of the three captains of the Imperial Guards appeared to be quite enjoying their stay inside that palace of legends. For, it appeared that their good sovereign had once again chosen to indulge in his favorite pastime: yelling himself purple in the face at luckless, trembling subordinates. Currently, King Vince was having a field day furiously upbraiding each and every single one of the three leaders for their appalling ignorance, their utter lack of efficiency or effectiveness, their execrable ways of conducting peace talks, their inexcusable tendencies of wasting imperial funds not unlike pouring water down a bottomless well, and just about every other shortcoming that his vocabulary would let him conjure up. 

For their part, the trio under fire was taking this verbal abuse with about as much grace as each individual member could possibly muster. First Captain Shawn Michaels was admirably able to endure his censure with cool dignity, as was befitting a top-class leader of men. Second Captain Chris Jericho, on the other hand, was scowling vigorously, looking like he was barely restraining himself from punching King Vince squarely in the jaw. Being clearly unable to escape such blasphemy with anything less than a hanging, Jericho settled instead for making funny faces or evil eyes at His Majesty whenever the latter's attention was focused on someone else. Third Captain Randy Orton, for his part, had long since tuned out King Vince's words, drawing upon his dramatic skills to put on an outwards face of undivided attention and personal shame while inwardly thinking to himself that the stable boys at Headquarters had better have groomed his favorite black English charger after the day's strenuous training. 

Five minutes passed of King Vince's nonstop ranting...then ten...fifteen...When His Majesty's "official reprimand" had passed the twenty-minute mark, the ruler of Thelian appeared to finally run out of air, and abruptly broke off in mid-sentence (a damn shame, too, for with morale boosters like "...Even an illiterate backwoodsman could have fended off those crazy ninja women better than you three foolhardy, maladroit, white-livered idiots!" Jericho was certainly expanding his vocabulary far more than his old English professors at Northeastern Boys Academy could have dreamed possible). Crossing his hexagonal-shaped office in a series of wide steps, King Vince picked up a cut-crystal decanter from his black walnut desk and noisily splashed out a glassful of Scotch whisky. He downed the entire shot in one gulp, before setting his glass back down and announcing in a low, ominous voice, "Just to let you three know, I don't plan on allowing your disappointingly lackluster performance over the past couple of weeks to go unpunished. Starting next week, I'm slashing your salaries in half and transferring a significant amount of funding out of the Imperial Guards' treasury and into a more...how should I put it..._exemplary_department." 

A dead silence descended upon the room as soon as those words left the king's royal mouth. Randy's head immediately snapped up, his mind flying back into reality as soon as the words "slashing" and "treasury" were uttered in the same sentence. Shawn tightened his hands into fists, steadily digging his nails into the palms of his hands until his knuckles turned white. The First Captain looked like he was about to protest King Vince's decision...but was unexpectedly beat to it by a rather surprising source, when Jericho stood up in outrage, throwing his chair off-balance and sending it toppling backwards. As his forgotten seat crumpled onto the floor and King Vince began to cry out in annoyance, Jericho met his sovereign's eyes in a steady gaze and declared coldly, "The day you slash our incomes is the day I quit the Imperial Guards!" 

At first, King Vince looked only stunned at his Second Captain's preposterous threat. Disbelieving that any halfway sane man would voluntarily quit such a plush and sought-after job, he soon recovered his wits and began doing his best to belittle Jericho.   
"You insignificant, pathetic ninny," he scoffed heatedly, leaping up from his chair and drawing himself to his full height to cut a more imposing figure. "Don't you forget that you need me and my money more than I could ever possibly need your pitiful--" Jericho stood his ground.   
"Forgive me for interrupting, Your Glorious Grace," he cut in with the subtlest hint of sarcasm in his voice, "for I need only a minute with which to remind you that had I not joined the Imperial Guards straight out of military school, I would have been amongst the highest-ranking officers in the army right now." King Vince huffed, opening his mouth to counter, but was once again interrupted as Jericho plowed on, "And with all due respect, Your Highness, don't think that I can't still achieve the honor of being the youngest general in your precious Imperial Army. I'm only in my early thirties; I'm still young, and I still have both the energy and the drive to carve out for myself quite a successful new military career." 

King Vince's eyebrows twitched furiously at those arrogant words, as he began to cut his Second Captain down with venomous malice, "Don't be a fool, Jericho! Who do you think runs this entire empire? Who do you think has the last say on whom my Imperial Army hires or doesn't hire? Do you think, after such an insubordination as you've just committed, that you'll even _have_a career left--no, you'll be lucky if you escape from the guillotine after talking back to me like that! Do you know who I am--?" Jericho calmly cut him off for a third time, an act unheard of when in the presence of a man who controlled virtually one half of the entire world.   
"There's no need to tell me twice who you are, King Vincent Kennedy McMahon II." A wicked smirk came over his features, a smirk which sent an uneasy chill coursing down King Vince's spine, as Jericho added with deliberate nonchalance, "I also, fortunately, know that the British...and the French...and the Germans...and the Spaniards...are all looking quite eagerly for experienced officers to lead their armies." 

After dropping his bomb, Jericho calmly relapsed back into smug silence. There was obviously no need for him to finish his thinly veiled threat, for King Vince's jaw dropped open, hanging unattractively for longer than he'd care to know as he himself sank into his seat, a defeated man. For several seconds, he contented himself with alternating death glares at all three of the Imperial Guard captains, from the subtly smiling Shawn, to the not-so-subtly gloating Randy, and focusing with especial hatred on the maddeningly self-assured-looking Jericho. Finally, King Vince coughed and conceded grudgingly, "Perhaps I _have_been a bit too hasty in my decision. We'll talk about this at a later date...I hope that by then we'll be able to come up with a solution that will be more beneficial for both parties."

* * *

  


"So the message is from none other than the Okashira herself," Gail Kim remarked merrily, lighting up the small, fashionably dim room with a sunny smile as she peered at her cards.   
"Yes, and it appears that all three of the Imperial Guards' gallant captains will be traveling together for Ashburn Park around four this afternoon," Trish Stratus murmured, one hand casually holding her cards while the other amused itself with drumming perfectly manicured nails against the smooth, polished blonde-wood surface of the card table.   
"While conveniently passing through a stretch of lonely road in the hills, both unescorted _and_lightly armed, one might add," Lita pointed out innocently from across the two women, an artfully artless smile etched on her features as she spoke. Victoria let out a low growl, before pounding one fist against the table and declaring in an ominous voice, "Then it's settled. The Okashira can't fathom a more perfect time or location for a triple assassination, and quite frankly, neither can I." 

To an unsuspecting observer, the quartet of coolly composed and attractive young women might have seemed like nothing more than four well-bred, upper-class ladies enjoying an innocent game of whist. However, had said observer been able to eavesdrop on their less-than-genteel conversation, he would have been flabbergasted to learn that these same harmlessly pretty ladies were in the process of planning a dangerous mission that would result in the combined deaths of the Imperial Guards' leaders--or of themselves.   
"So we'll ambush them while they're vulnerable," Gail sang out cheerfully, a wickedly gleeful glint lighting up her russet eyes to temporarily reveal her true bloodthirsty nature, usually hidden with great care behind fluttering lashes and charming peals of laughter.   
"I'll take my ninja school thirty minutes before the hour of the...er, _rendezvous,_if you will, and booby-trap the surrounding area with land mines and other such explosives. Just in case the worst should happen, at least we'll have a guarantee that none of those three will escape alive," Lita volunteered, her eyebrows narrowed in a dark frown--but whether because she was thinking of the assassination or merely because she and her partner were currently losing the game was difficult to determine.   
"It's never a bad idea to have a Plan B," Gail agreed optimistically, adding with a carelessly genial grin, "I'll instruct my students to hide in the trees above and prepare themselves for an aerial ambush. By the way, Lita, you and Victoria will come out of this game dreadfully penniless unless you improve your hands at whist." 

The older kunoichi scowled visibly at this craftily guileless jab from the youngest of Kuro Kei's four masters, and Trish, realizing that she would have to play peacemaker or the assassination would never be realized due to internal conflicts, spoke up smoothly, "It'll be best if my school leads the attack, making the first strike and then quickly retreating. After all," she quickly added, upon seeing the looks of discontent on the other three women's faces, "after all, with so many poisoned dirks and arrows flying around--since that _is_the Fourth Attack school's specialty--the wisest move we can make is to strike first and retreat quickly so as to not involve any of the other ninja in the crossfire." 

Victoria nodded approvingly.   
"Good plan," she grunted. "I hope we can trust you with luring the three captains out of their coach as well?" In response, Trish merely offered one of her slow, evil smiles--a sentiment which seemed to be largely shared by all four women at the card table--before Victoria took charge again and outlined their final plans.   
"In that case, after Trish and her ninja have done their job, it'll be up to Gail's and my schools to ambush the captains," she detailed curtly. "By the time the tide turns in battle--in either side's favor--Lita and her sect will have finished planting the bombs and can then join in the fight as well." A general murmur of consent rose from the other three masters, before Gail finished vivaciously, "Then let us inform our fellow kunoichi, and get the assassination underway!"

* * *

  


Unbeknownst to the four masters of Kuro Kei's attack schools, however, many of the young hotshots from the Imperial Guards had descended upon Belmont after training was cut short that day, and, under the leadership of the swaggering John Cena, had now flocked to the school library and were waiting with ill-concealed impatience to call on that illustrious college's students. Reckless, vainglorious, and often times too devastatingly handsome for their own good, these dashing young cavaliers were currently trying to kill some time spent in waiting by scrutinizing every piece of furniture in the room...with some rather regrettable results, unfortunately. 

Even the brash and smugly overconfident John Cena couldn't help but wince when he accidentally cracked the blade of one in a pair of ancient, handsomely-carved scimitars. The exotic Oriental swords had been previously crossed artistically above the fireplace, but were now lying on the floor, thanks to a certain dark-haired Second Troop officer who'd nearly broken one of the swords in two when he took them off to admire their fine craftsmanship. 

John, however, wasn't alone in his unintentional destruction of Belmont property, for no sooner had he guiltily replaced the crossed swords above the fireplace than a loud ripping sound was heard across the vast room, and all heads turned to stare at the culprits. Shane Helms and Shannon Moore flushed sheepishly under this scrutiny, before hurriedly returning to their task of anxiously trying to piece back together a delicate Chinese scroll they'd torn in half when pulling it off the wall for closer inspection. 

"Oh, shit!" a howled-out cry suddenly pierced the characteristically quiet library, when Jeff Hardy plopped down on a dainty horsehair seat only to find himself sliding off its slick upholstery half a second afterwards. In an effort to prevent his fall, the colorful young man held on for dear life onto his chair, but only succeeded in dragging it with him as he plummeted onto the floor, scratching the smooth mahogany of its framework when all was said and done. 

Just as René Dupree and Sylvan Grenier managed to inadvertently dislodge a Monet from the wall, the sounds of a woman's light footsteps permeated across the hall and toward the library. The restless Imperial Guards froze in mid-action, before speedily scattering across the vast room and trying to piece back together what they had destroyed, with John playing overseer and harassing his fellow guardsmen to, "Act as natural as you all can!" 

No sooner had those words left his mouth than Lilian Garcia entered the library, wearing a modest pale pink gown and a welcoming smile on her face...a smile which quickly slipped off, to be replaced by a wide-eyed look of dismay, as soon as she caught sight of the state that the room was in.   
"You...the swords...the paintings...!" the blonde secretary stammered helplessly, and the Imperial Guards before her, so gallant and fearless in battle, shuffled their feet together and lowered their heads abashedly like chastised schoolchildren. It wasn't too long, however, when most of these lusty young men regained all their bluster and self-importance which Lilian had temporarily managed to shame out of them, and John soon took it upon himself to stride up to the slender blonde and insist rather presumptuously, "Listen here, Miss...um...Something...Er, listen, here, Miss, go and tell your headmistress that she can feel free to charge however much it takes to repair all our minor accidents to King Vince--since, after all, he _is_paying for our funds in exchange for protection--but right now--"   
"But right now," Matt Hardy broke in carelessly, "we're getting together a little party to go on a fox hunt, and have just stopped by to invite--" 

And here a pandemonium broke out, as every youth recklessly pushed and elbowed his companion out of the way in order to be heard over the din of female names being laughingly shouted out at the luckless Lilian.   
"Miss Annis!"   
"Miss Autumn!"   
"Miss Isabella!"   
"Miss Elizabeth!"   
"Miss Rune!"   
"Miss Maya!'   
"Miss Kyra!" 

...And so on. John pushed his way to the forefront of the group bombarding poor Lilian with random names, clearing his throat importantly and declaring with smug self-confidence, "So you see, Miss...erm, Miss, we're not leaving here until all these girls have agreed to come on the hunt with us!"   
"Yeah, that's right!" Jeff, who'd been responsible for hurling at least half a dozen different names at the bewildered Belmont secretary, agreed enthusiastically. "We're going to stay right here and wear them down--and even serenade them, if it comes to that--until they come on the hunt with us!" 

Lilian hid an exasperated frown, silently bemoaning the Imperial Guards' inconvenient arrival--not to mention their thoughtless destruction of Belmont property--but forced herself to smother any traces of her displeasure and instead curtseyed politely while murmuring, "In that case, please continue waiting here, gentlemen, and I'll see what I can do. Excuse me." And with a swish of her skirts she was gone, hurrying on swift feet to the east wing of the building until she had reached a small, inconspicuous room. 

Knocking three times in a peculiar manner, Lilian was inevitably greeted by a sudden lapse of silence from behind the closed doors, before Trish's voice called out calmly, "Come in." The doors slid open, prompting the petite secretary to step inside and witness what appeared to be nothing more remarkable than the end of a simple game of whist. She knew better than to be deceived by this casual disguise, but settled for simply announcing, "Several Imperial Guards have just arrived from Ashburn Park. They claim that they won't leave until certain Belmont students agree to accompany them on a late-afternoon fox hunt." 

At this unexpected and highly unwelcome news, Victoria's features rushed together in a dark glower as her mouth twisted down fearfully, Lita's eyebrows twitched in silent anger while her hands clenched into fists, Trish frowned and bit down on her lower lip until she nearly drew blood, and even Gail's trademark bright smile abruptly slipped halfway off her face. Trish regained her composure first and asked warily, "For whom have these men asked?" Lilian shrugged, before replying uneasily, "Virtually every ninja in the clan, I'm afraid." At this bit, Victoria's glare deepened considerably, and she slammed both fists onto the table in impotent rage, causing the neatly-stacked playing cards arranged on top of it to jump several inches off the surface. Lita couldn't help but scowl herself, adding crossly, "It's no wonder I wish these girls wouldn't allow themselves to be courted by the likes of the Imperial Guards." Gail, who'd seemingly recovered her good humor after the initial surprise of the suitors' arrival had worn off, reminded the fiery redhead with a good-natured giggle, "Now, now, society practically dictates that young ladies of their age and social class collect equally affluent beaus."   
"Then I'm glad you can take all this with such good grace," came the grumpy reply, as Lita straightened up and added, "Because those arrogant young fools have just seriously hampered our mission and unwittingly saved their captains' lives. Now what do we do?" 

"There is no need to panic just yet," Trish broke in quietly, after having taken a couple of deep breaths as though to calm herself. Gail quickly caught on, and added blithely, "She's right. Our mission hasn't been completely dashed, it just needs to be reworked, and carried out with a somewhat diminished force, that's all."   
"And," Trish added, her voice taking on a steadily more feverish pitch as she tried to rapidly work out the new plan aloud, "since both of you--" Here, she nodded her head in the direction of Victoria and Lita--"got the chance to lead your ninja into battle last night, it's only fair that Gail and I lead the operation today."   
"What do you mean?" Lita frowned suspiciously, at the same time that Victoria added, "Those idiotic men asked for a number of our students, not us professors; she and I can still go on the mission."   
"And leave the girls unchaperoned with those reckless paramours? Really, Vickie, that's an awfully scandalous proposal you're making," Gail laughingly wagged her finger in front of the substantially taller kunoichi's nose, causing a thunderous glare to skirt across the latter's face.   
"Let's not quarrel over this," Trish hastily broke in, uneasy at the prospect of a fracas amongst the four ninja masters. "Gail and I will take a small team consisting of...Let's see..."   
"Autumn, Maya, Ishiekah, Elizabeth, and Sonoko--that way we'll have a couple of kunoichi from each attack school," Gail suggested logically. "We'll carry out the assassination by ourselves. In the meantime, the rest of whichever girls those Imperial Guards are courting will have to pass up this mission and go on the fox hunt, with Lita and Victoria acting as their chaperones." 

After a long pause, Victoria looked up and brusquely signified her assent with a cold, "Agreed." Lita merely shrugged, quipping dryly, "Somehow, I can't necessarily imagine Victoria and myself as chaperones--those are roles fit for dowagers, not for beautiful young ninja like ourselves!" Trish tilted back her head and laughed good-naturedly, before mock-threatening her flame-haired friend, "In that case, you two beautiful young ninja take care not to steal any of the girls' suitors away and keep them for yourselves. This clan can't afford to stage its own civil war right now, especially not over a couple of worthless swaggering men!"

* * *

  


Several miles away at the training grounds of Ashburn Park, Third Troop officer Gabrielle LeNoir continued to tirelessly practice horsemanship atop her fleet-footed white mare, each jump more dangerous and gravity-defying than the last. After a particularly spectacular routine, the twenty-two-year-old ash-blonde Sieragonian managed to detect, over the sound of her own heavy breathing, a spirited female voice calling down with a friendly laugh, "Don't you think you've done enough for the day? It isn't wise for you to wear yourself out drilling endlessly like this; at least take a rest for your poor horse's sake!" Gabrielle glanced up in astonishment, scanning the skies almost accusingly before finally discovering the owner of that particular piece of advice. 

Nineteen-year-old Nicola Thayar peered down at the pretty, fair-haired horsewoman from the large window in her chamber, having just completed her toilette and stepping forward to push aside the heavy drapes in her room so as to let in some fresh air. Gabrielle nearly did a double take at the transformation that had come about the younger Imperial Guard once out of uniform. Dressed in a rich carmine crinoline with yards of black braiding, Nicola looked almost...feminine. It proved to be a rather unsettling change from the maverick swordswoman who'd nearly cut off a good chunk of her direct superior's prided long hair earlier in the day. Gabrielle coughed to get over her surprise, skillfully regaining control of her reins before they could slip away and allow her horse to veer off-path, then raised her voice and tilted her head in the general direction of the other woman's room to reply, "You don't understand, Nicola; I've got to keep practicing like this if I want to prove to them that I can shoot and ride as well as any man--" 

A sudden shrill call cut her off just then, and the two girls glanced up to see the majestic form of a bird of prey swooping at a fantastic speed across the sky. Both of them quickly raised their arms over their foreheads to shield their eyes against the piercing rays of the scarlet afternoon sun, before Gabrielle squinted at the raptor in an effort to identify it and murmured thoughtfully, "If I'm not mistaken, that bird appears to be a peregrine falcon..."

* * *

  


The famous evergreen forests on the outskirts of Ellistaire were virtually every artist's dream. In the winter, endless puffs of lily-white snow softly cloaked the stubbornly emerald leaves like fallen clouds which had descended upon the trees; during the spring and summer, when all of nature was in bloom, the forests were inevitably splashed with rainbow-bright colors and the sweet fragrances of honeysuckle and wild roses. 

The autumn picture of the evergreens in late 1870, in turn, was that of simple, sleepy serenity. A few squirrels darted across the dark mossy undergrowth on their daily acorn-gathering treks, several butterflies fluttered from one delicate blossom to the next, and the occasional songbird let out one or two melodious notes, but otherwise, animal activity remained fairly passive on that languid afternoon. 

Until, that is, the sudden loud, exultant yell of a young man--a shout of triumph that sounded something along the lines of, "Yaa-eey-yah!"--noisily and rather rudely pierced through the still forest air, effortlessly shattering the delicate peace of nature along the way. Mere seconds after the boisterous cry had resonated across the trees, a wave of chaos descended upon the once tranquil forest, for the earth suddenly began to quake under the thunderous drumbeats of a hundred hooves, while the air was violently assaulted with the combined cacophonies of overexcited bloodhounds barking, horses neighing shrilly, and young men yelling in perfect imitations of the first warrior cry. Moments later, a pack of red foxes burst out of a dense cluster of trailing ivy vines and heather and myrtle shrubs, running frenziedly with the fantastic speed and agility that terror and desperation bring out in all living creatures, the fluffy white tips of their tails waving in the air like miniature flags. 

No sooner had the last fox begun its wild escape than the august form of a tall, dark, and handsome rider half-rising from atop his fierce Spanish stallion burst out from the thick, tangled foliage. This untamed youth was John Cena, who confidently pushed his way to the lead of the party by exploiting his advantage of having come into possession of the fastest horse at the hunt (technically, the Spanish charger was supposed to belong to Randy, who'd recently purchased it from an Andalusian dealer at an unheard of price...but then again, what was a little unauthorized borrowing between two best friends?). John was soon followed by a no less high-spirited group of young aristocrats, all enthusiastically whipping their horses on the flanks with their riding crops in what was beginning to look more and more like a futile effort to overtake John and his--or rather, _Randy's_--storm-colored stallion. The hunting party and its horses leapt with easy grace over prickly berry brambles and around climbing wisteria vines, splashing with such ado over the brooks and streams that the ladies shrieked with laughter, before continuing on its noisy pursuit of the white-tailed foxes, followed closely by packs of trained bloodhounds and Labradors which barked and whined eagerly below their masters' feet. 

The gentlemen gave chase to any animals in sight, showboating and laughing freely in their efforts to impress the ladies. The young ladies, for their part, admirably gave no indication that they harbored any ill feelings against these skylarking Imperial Guards. 

Annis Clough, riding along on a dainty strawberry mare, had complete confidence in her fellow ninja's abilities to bring down a mere three men, and had fully let loose to enjoy the hunt. She laughed spiritedly, flirting with half a dozen men at the same time and generally protesting that they were being much too bold in their approaches, even as her grey-specked honey eyes teasingly sassed them as to how far they truly dared to go. 

Rune Angelo and Isabella Walker weren't quite as forward as the pert and energetic Annis, but they weren't so reserved as to be riding along in complete silence, either. The former even slipped up and yelled a heated accusation that both Hardy brothers were inconsiderate cads when those two rode crashingly past her in their efforts to overtake John and nearly catapulted the hapless blonde to the other side of the forest as a result. For her troubles and her tart words, Rune earned whoops of outrageous laughter from the young men and silent looks of approval from her fellow kunoichi. 

As for Isabella, she avoided making herself quite as conspicuous as Rune had just done, but nevertheless soon found herself being drawn into conversation with René Dupree and Sylvan Grenier. Both young Frenchmen were astonished to find out that Isabella had been born and raised in Cumbré, a province in Thelian which ran right along its western borders with France. To convince the incredulous two Narcissi of the authenticity of her heritage, Isabella had gone ahead and playfully accused them of behaving with about as much refinement as Jeff Hardy usually did, in their native language. 

Shy and sweet-tempered Kyra Andrews rode along uncertainly on her satin-maned cremelo. Being such a small and wraithlike person, she was instinctively wary of excessively large beasts, and seven years at Belmont, with its well-stocked corral of blooded thoroughbreds, had unfortunately failed at diminishing this apprehensiveness around horses. Kyra managed a weak smile as Annis and her flock of cavaliers swiftly overtook her, shouting cheerful words of encouragement at the lovely brunette in passing. Realizing that she risked being left behind in the excitement of the hunt unless she picked up her pace, Kyra reluctantly put spurs on her horse, then nearly screamed when Lita and Victoria decided to give the younger woman an unasked assist in her task and roguishly snuck up on her to simultaneously slap her cremelo's flank with their riding crops. The poor horse neighed shrilly and tore down the road, its hapless rider struggling hard not to yelp in shock and terror, even as all sorts of revenge plans flew through her head. 

The only person who didn't seem to be having any fun at the hunt was Hikari Tsukino, who had subtly set herself apart from the group. She rode stiffly, silently, having little to say and never voluntarily speaking unless directly spoken to. Once or twice she was caught glaring with unconcealed disdain at the playfully cavorting Imperial Guards, but as most of the latter were much too gentlemanly to outright accuse a woman of being a contemptuous vixen, they let the matter slip and allowed Hikari to continue scowling and shaking her head. 

Overall, the scene at the forest was one of high-spirited gaiety, depicting nothing more out of the ordinary than a group of richly-dressed, attractive youths of Europe's upper class enjoying a traditional fox hunt. Certainly, nothing would indicate to a stranger observing these goings-on that the gathering at the forest consisted of, in fact, mortal enemies.

* * *

  


Less than fifteen miles away, the Imperial Guard stagecoach had just passed by a fork in the road and was now entering a darkly wooded area cutting across the hills. Outside, tall seedling pines cast gloomy black shadows across the path, with occasional splotches of light scattered here and there wherever pale sunbeams dared to pierce through the heavy cloak of darkness. Inside the horse-drawn vehicle, Shawn closed his eyes and rested his head against the thick brocade uphostelry, taking advantage of this brief interval of peace to convalesce from his previous night's poisoning. Seated across from the First Captain were Jericho and Randy, who had opted to completely disregard their comrade's obvious wish for some calm and harmony and were instead noisily trying to out-brag each other.   
"All the more reason why yours truly should be the next First Captain of our little organization," Jericho was puffing with pride, purposely tossing back his long blonde hair with a sweep of his head so that several strands slapped against Randy's nose. "It took some true courage to stand up to His Majesty the way I did just a while ago!" Randy scowled, irritably whacking Jericho's hair out of his face and grumbling resentfully, "That was no more than an empty bluff, and you know it! You're just lucky the king didn't hang you first and regret the decision later, the way he's prone to do."   
"How now, do I see the ugly green head of jealousy peeping from behind that pretty face you usually wear?" Jericho sneered in a maddeningly singsong tone, causing Randy to whirl around in a fury, hands up and intent on throttling the self-centered Second Captain.   
"Stop it." Shawn had merely to crack open one eye to bring an end to the impending fight. 

Before either Jericho or Randy could defend his side of the story, the coach came to an abrupt halt, nearly spilling both out of their seats. The two outraged captains barely managed to prevent themselves from toppling forward onto Shawn, and as soon as Jericho was sure that his hair hadn't gotten damaged in the near-fall, he spun over to yell bitingly out the carriage window, "Don't you dare do that again unless you never want any children of your own!" The driver of the coach called back a wary apology, before turning around to face the cause of their emergency stop--a forlorn, pathetic little figure which had suddenly stumbled into their path from the surrounding foliage.   
"Hey, Mister, Mister! Please help me!" the tiny form called out in a weak voice high-pitched with desperation. He cut the image of a lost schoolboy, in his prim beige coat and trousers, starched white linen shirt tied with a little red bow around the neck, and polished brown loafers. A too-large beige newsboy hat was pulled low over his short dark hair, covering nearly half his face as he lurched closer to the concerned driver, hands spread out in the universal gesture for help.   
"Sir, please!" the young boy uttered one final feeble cry, before his strength gave out and he collapsed onto his knees. 

Inside the coach, Randy and Jericho darted brief, bored glances out their respective windows to see what all the fuss was about. Realizing what a minor setback it was--the two agreed that the schoolboy was probably just some little idiot begging for directions to his house--they decided to pay no further attention to the goings-on outside and resumed their heated debate over who was the more accomplished gentleman. Shawn's reaction, however, was a different story, for as soon as he heard the child's voice, his eyes flew open and he abruptly straightened up from his relaxed position. Pushing past the other two Imperial Guards, Shawn scrabbled at the fluttering lace curtains and accidentally yanked them off the carriage window in his impatience to get a closer look at this so-called lost child. He managed to lock eyes with the schoolboy for a fleeting moment--the latter's cold, cat-like green eyes sent an instinctive chill down his spine--and immediately knew that something was wrong with this picture. He couldn't quite explain his feeling...but there was something about this feeble-looking little boy that sat ill with him. Something wasn't right about the child...the innocence and free-spiritedness of youth were noticeably missing from him...And then Shawn's eyes opened wide as he felt his whole body go cold for a brief instant, for he knew what was wrong about the schoolboy! 

Outside, the driver of the coach got off his seat and went over to check on the frail child, gently picking him up off the road and putting his calloused, work-roughened hands as gently as he knew how onto the boy's slender shoulders. From behind, a dark, furtive shadow began stealthily creeping up on the driver, while he peered with concern at the youngster and asked kindly, "Are you all right, little boy?" The driver had just enough time to see said little boy raise "his" head so that a pair of glittering, unnaturally green eyes glinted wickedly at him from underneath that oversized newsboy hat, before an unforgiving kodachi blade suddenly stabbed him from behind, cleanly through. He died with the image of the schoolboy's lips curving wickedly upwards into a sneer. 

Shawn's hoarse cry of, "Get away from there!" erupted a mere half-second after the unfortunate driver's death, while the masked and darkly-clad murderess--in this case, one Inoue Sonoko--jerked and pulled vigorously to wrench her kodachi loose from where it had been buried between her victim's shoulder blades. Meanwhile, the "schoolboy" who'd disappeared in the blink of an eye during the actual stabbing suddenly reemerged in the tiny form of Elizabeth Hawkins, who leaped lithely back to avoid being sprayed with the driver's blood and disdainfully wrinkled her nose as she watched the tip of Sonoko's blade vanish grotesquely from the man's chest. 

By then, Jericho and Randy had finally caught on as well that something was horribly wrong with their present situation. The two captains each leapt to a window, just in time to see Sonoko succeed in yanking her kodachi loose from their driver's back, and gave twin cries of disbelief. Shawn had already recovered from the initial shock of what was beginning to look more and more like a planned Kuro Kei ambush, and was now reaching over to the door and jiggling desperately at its gilded gold handle with little success. The carriage door was stuck; apparently, the diminutive Elizabeth had had enough strength in her small frame to pick up a sturdy tree branch and drive it across the vehicle's outside handle after changing her toilette from schoolboy uniform to ninja suit.   
"Move!" Shawn gritted out in an uncharacteristic burst of anger, punching uselessly at the jammed coach door with his closed left fist. 

At the back, the bored footman whom King Vince had so generously provided for his three Imperial Guards started up at hearing what sounded like muffled cursing erupt from inside the closed coach. With a frown of confusion, he started to turn around and jump off... 

...Only to have his chest sliced wide open in a single graceful arc, courtesy of the masked and cloaked Autumn Li. The footman's dying thought was that never in his service to the king had he seen a sword quite as beautiful as the one his assassin wielded--sleek and double-edged, with thick crimson tassels nodding proudly from its snakeskin-and-gold-filigree handle, a scarlet Chinese dragon soaring among clouds painted on one side of the silvery-gray blade, the name of the sword elegantly written in blood-colored Chinese characters on the other. Autumn lightly stepped back with the first stage of her mission complete, then hesitated with an air of curious observation as the dead footman's necklace fell out from underneath his shirt. Noticing the shape of the pendant dangling from its slender silver chain, the willowy girl stopped to quietly make the sign of the cross, before moving on to join her fellow ninja who were now systematically emerging from their hiding spots amidst brambles and tree branches. 

Suddenly, the sound of splintering wood erupted across the forest. One of the coach doors had been broken wide open with a vengeance, when Randy jammed his back against his seat and used his long, powerful legs to kick the door right off its hinges. All three Imperial Guard captains hurdled out of their temporary imprisonment, armed with what pitifully few weapons they had with them, only to find themselves surrounded on all sides: five darkly-clad kunoichi led by their masters.   
"Aw, shit," Jericho swore softly under his breath, causing Randy, ever the gentleman, to mutter humorlessly, "Not in front of ladies, remember?" Jericho scowled.   
"These aren't ladies, these are hellcats, sent straight to this world by the Devil himself!" he growled darkly, glaring at the group of ninja and trying not to let his uneasiness show. 

Further conversation was made impossible, when Maya Shiranui suddenly swung upside down from a tree to shoot a barrage of what at first appeared to be harmless paper packets out of her blowgun. It was only when one of these tiny containers exploded with cayenne pepper and metal shavings on contact against Jericho's forehead, missing his eyes by less than a quarter inch and causing the startled captain to let out a mad howl, that his comrades realized the impracticality of standing around discussing the situation at hand.   
"Divide and conquer!" Shawn ordered in a terse cry, and at his words, the three Imperial Guards promptly split up in three different directions and faced off against their enemies, hoping that by separating the ninja they would be easier to take down. 

The ensuing battle saw Autumn and Maya team up to take on Randy in a flurry of martial arts and swordsmanship. Maya had discarded her blowgun and instead whipped out her weapons of choice from behind her back--a pair of black sickles with twelve-inch blades, known as kama, which she proceeded to twirl around in her hands with a flair of menacing showmanship. Autumn's route of displaying her weapon was quieter but no less effective. She merely held up her gold-filigree scabbard, wrapped with sleek snakeskin, and scraped her Chinese sword against its interior, cleaning off the footman's blood from its blade in a single ominous motion. Randy glanced from one kunoichi to the other, his hands hovering alertly over both his ivory-mounted dueling pistols as he silently cursed King Vince for having summoned him to the Royal Palace in the first place. Despite cutting the image of supreme male confidence on the outside, inwardly he couldn't help but wince at noticing how long and wickedly sharp were the blades pointed against him.   
"Swords weren't made to match up against firearms," he muttered this reassuring phrase to himself, before whipping out both pistols and firing. Maya leapt low and flattened herself against the moss-covered ground to avoid getting hit, while Autumn soared up onto an overhanging tree limb at the last minute so that the bullet passed harmlessly through the scarlet silk sash tied around her waist. Both girls sprang back as soon as the immediate danger was over, and began their silent charge toward Randy. 

In the meantime, Elizabeth and Trish had headed straight for Jericho, who was attempting to escape to a clearing beyond the forests so that he could better fight the two elusive ninja in open range without having to worry about being struck from behind.   
"Coward!" Elizabeth screamed heatedly after the Second Captain's rapidly disappearing back, only to have Trish cry out, "Watch it!" and roughly shove the tiny brunette to the ground. It didn't take the two women long to figure out that Jericho didn't exactly appreciate being called a coward, much less by one of his enemies, much less if said enemy happened to be a woman, for the blonde Imperial Guard had somehow managed to pause for a second in flight to turn around and fire off a well-aimed bullet straight for Elizabeth's mouth. When the initial threat of being gunned down had waned and Jericho's bullet had lodged itself into a tree behind Elizabeth's head, the petite ninja sprang up and let out a furious screech after her attacker. In a fit of blind rage, she reached into her sash and pulled out her tanto, despite the fact that Jericho was now well beyond stabbing distance.   
"Don't do it!" Trish started to order warningly, but the furious Elizabeth paid no heed to her best friend and mentor, and, after calculating the gap between herself and Jericho, arched back her throwing hand and hurled her bronze-handled knife straight at his back. Jericho, unfortunately, soon proved that he wasn't captain of the Second Troop for nothing, when he apparently detected the noise that Elizabeth's dagger made in flight and turned around just in time to unsheathe his rapier and deflect the bladed projectile.   
"Is that all a stupid girl like you can do?" he crowed mockingly. Elizabeth looked like she wanted to tear him apart limb by limb for his jeer...and this time, Trish was only too happy to concur. 

Seeing that Shawn had earned himself quite an admirable reputation as the Imperial Guards' First Captain, all three of Sonoko, Gail, and Ishiekah Maras decided to work together to match up against the illustrious troop leader. Shawn noticed wryly, during the first moments of their face-off, the apparent hesitance of his ninja adversaries to strike all at once, despite their obvious desire to kill him off as quickly as possible. _So they're trying to wear me down and catch me off-guard,_he thought with little amusement, likening the three women's stances to the posture of a hungry jaguar he'd once encountered in the rainforests of South America while putting down an 1866 ranchers' rebellion in the Thelian colonies there. When the trio of ninja finally struck, it was with the sudden springing motion of the lurking jaguar as well. Ishiekah flung herself at Shawn with the mad ferocity of a Fury, her nunchucks a flying blur of motion between her hands. She struck out at her opponent with a fever that alarmed him through its sheer crazy anger, and only by drawing his saber at the last minute did he escape being clobbered into oblivion by one end of her nunchucks. This momentary evasion hardly allowed him a moment of respite, however, for Sonoko and her kodachi were waiting for him from behind. With a seamless motion, she attempted to spear the blade of her short sword right through Shawn's throat, and it was by a margin that the latter managed to avoid the full impact of her attack, escaping with only the left side of his neck grazed. Now bleeding from the neck, Shawn turned around to face Gail, who took advantage of his surprise at seeing her practically right in front of his face and sent him staggering backwards with a well-aimed kick to the chest. As his back crashed with a solid smack against a heavy pine trunk, Shawn groaned and looked warily at the three kunoichi advancing on him from three different directions, then joined Randy in silently cursing King Vince's poor timing for calling meetings with his captains. 

Randy himself was faring quite poorly against the combined efforts of Autumn and Maya with only his dueling pistols, and soon found himself bringing up his own gold-hilted saber to ward off their relentless strikes. Having fought against the two girls for some time now, he soon found himself distinguishing between their individual styles of combat. Autumn attacked methodically, gracefully, unleashing a series of astonishingly swift, relentless slashes and thrusts with her sword from various different angles and occasionally employing a small dagger for defense. She supplemented her bladed attacks with the northern Shao-lin style of martial arts, relying on her legs to deliver kicks while her arms wielded her sword, but her main weakness, like many styles of Chinese swordsmanship, was that she relied too heavily on showy, colorful moves in battle--moves that sent her sword spinning madly while its cardinal tassels flew in wide arcs like battle flags, moves which were awe-inspiring to watch but which also left her vulnerable to precise, well-aimed attacks. It was this weakness which Randy fully intended to exploit, trying and discarding an endless array of tricks and fake thrusts in an effort to force an opening into her guard so that he could safely strike her down. He lunged forward with his saber aimed straight for her heart, knowing that his thrust was too close for her to deflect with her sword; however, Autumn brought up her dagger at the last minute and canceled out some of the force of his attack, nicking the skin of his gloved hand in the process and drawing a slender line of blood. She staggered backwards in a flash of silver steel and streaming red tassels, encouraging Randy to charge forward and attempt an overhead blow which she managed to avoid by dropping down in a full leg-split at the last minute. 

Maya was a different story. There were no flamboyant moves or flashy leaping over swords for her--she attacked to kill, not to impress, and once Autumn was temporarily tired out, stepped forward to take her turn at playing Skewer the Imperial Guard. Maya then proceeded to launch into an arsenal of swinging arcs and crescents with her kama blades, once narrowly missing beheading Randy and instead cutting a deep gorge into the thick trunk of a nearby pine. Watching the frustrated ninja wrench angrily at her imbedded kama, Randy dropped his guard and ambled forward to gloat, only to nearly get struck down by the second kama of the resourceful Maya, who simply let go at the last moment and propelled herself off the tree to take advantage of the forward momentum and swing again at his head.   
"Whoa!" Randy cried out, grabbing his pistol at the last minute and firing blindly at the charging Maya, who stopped abruptly in mid-motion. A bladed kama went flying off into the air, having been knocked out of its owner's hands by the force of Randy's shot. Maya scowled, and improvised by closing the gap between them to punch Randy right in the face, buying herself some time while she returned to her pine and jerked vigorously at her still-stuck first kama. Randy staggered back, holding his once flawless nose. A single rivulet of blood, starkly crimson against his suntanned face, spurted out of his left nostril and trickled down his face.   
"You bitch!" the incensed Third Captain swore, when he realized that Maya had been wearing brass knuckles beneath her gloves to strengthen her punch. 

_You bitch_was a sentiment which Jericho seemed to echo as well, for he soon found that he could no longer try to lure the two ninja at his heels into the open range, lest he be struck down by a hundred poisoned arrows from behind. Elizabeth and Trish had stubbornly given chase to their elusive prey, the former bending quickly along the way, without slowing down, to pick up the tanto she'd attempted to throw as a shuriken at Jericho's back. Jericho abruptly seemed to change his mind in mid-flight, and instead turned around to face his opponents head-on. This sudden rethinking of strategy caused some concern to the older and more experienced Trish, who paused cautiously as well and half-lowered her bow, trying to figure out whether Jericho had merely decided to fight his adversaries face-to-face...or whether he had a dirty trick up his sleeve. Brash and young Elizabeth, on the other hand, couldn't be bothered with trying to read her enemy's intentions, and instead charged Jericho, flying at him from a tree and snapping a pair of ashiko onto her boots at the last minute in an effort to forever disfigure his face with their spiked soles. Jericho brought up his rapier to ward her away, but Elizabeth used her diminutive size and weight to her advantage and instead launched herself lightly off his sword and safely landed on the ground. Once there, she slipped off one of her ashiko for easier mobility before using her still-armed other foot to take a lightning-fast swinging kick at Jericho's side. He fell, clutching his bloodied ribs and swearing magnificently, but before staggering back had time to pull a derringer out of his left boot and fire at Elizabeth. Pain marred his usually perfect shot, but nevertheless he managed to knock the girl's tanto out of her hands just as she was going to eviscerate him with it. 

Shawn caught a glimpse of Jericho firing upon his opponents, and the First Captain's mouth drew into a taut line. _Good for you,_he thought grimly, for at that particular moment, Shawn was experiencing an unquenchable thirst to wipe all goddamn ninja off the face of the Earth. Ishiekah, once in the field of battle, transformed from a mere mortal woman into a raging demon, and was attacking Shawn madly in a storm of bloodlust. Shawn couldn't help but think that for a girl armed only with a pair of nunchucks--a weapon which wasn't even conventionally used by most ninja as a chief form of offense--the panther-like brunette could certainly hold her own against his formidable swordsmanship skills. More times than not Ishiekah tried to disarm him, and once she even succeeded by entangling the blade of Shawn's saber with the heavy chain of her nunchucks. With this sword safely trapped, she then proceeded to tug madly at the finely-carved weapon, jerking it out of its wielder's expert hands and sending it flying several feet away. When Shawn tried to go after his runaway saber, Ishiekah swung her nunchucks at his face, wrapping the chain around his neck and pulling hard. Shawn wheezed and coughed at the sudden burst of searing pain, his hands instinctively going up to his throat and yanking hard at the merciless chain around it. Ishiekah, however, was absolutely unforgiving, and his attempts to get loose only fueled her to pull harder on her nunchucks. Shawn was only able to escape when clear thinking overtook those first few moments of frantic reflexes, and he reached into his belt to pull out his forgotten silver-inlaid pistol. Jamming the barrel against the first spot of vulnerable flesh he found, Shawn pulled the trigger and fired. Ishiekah hissed in pain as a bullet lodged itself into the right knee of her pants and exploded on contact, shattering part of the bone and deflecting a fragment upwards into her thigh. Her grip on her nunchucks loosened as its chain subsequently slipped from around Shawn's neck, so that he sprang up from the feeble kneeling position he didn't know he'd taken and coughingly gasped in a mouthful of sweet, cool air. 

His victory proved to be short-lived, however, for no sooner had Ishiekah been incapacitated than Sonoko furtively snuck up on him, silent as his own shadow, when he went to retrieve his saber. He saw only a brief, blurry figure reflected on his sword's blade before Sonoko struck from behind, and had he not quickly rolled out of the way, he would have been impaled in the throat with her kodachi. However, in the process, the right side of his neck was nicked, and Shawn now found himself bleeding--albeit not quite as profusely as Kuro Kei would have liked--from both sides of his neck. While Gail shouldered on the responsibility of checking up on Ishiekah and making sure that her pupil's injury wasn't going to require an amputation, Sonoko undertook the difficult task of trying to bring down Shawn by herself. The short Japanese ninja resisted the impulse to swear softly at her current situation, for by then Shawn had gathered his wits about him and assumed an offensive stance. Sonoko's eyes widened behind her mask, for she knew only too well that full-frontal attacks were not, nor had they ever been, her forte. She barely had time to deflect the first of Shawn's merciless blows, and, realizing that escape from certain death wasn't exactly considered dishonorable conduct in battle, proceeded to jump up and flee, trying vigorously to maneuver behind Shawn so that she could impale him from the back. Once or twice she nearly succeeded in her tireless quest, by faking a forward thrust and then doubling back, but always Shawn somehow managed to pivot on his heels at the last minute and counter her strike with his saber, while at the same time rapidly firing his pistol in an effort to take her down the same way he had Ishiekah... 

...Until a booted foot stuck out from the undergrowth to trip the nimble First Captain and cause him topple hard onto his face. Gail Kim emerged from behind the myrtle shrubs she'd been hiding, apparently having decided that Ishiekah's bullet wound wasn't lethal and it was therefore okay for the master of Kuro Kei's Second Attack to rejoin the battle.   
"Don't be greedy, now," the kittenish Korean woman laughed sunnily, adding as she glanced down at Shawn, "Leave some for me, as well." 

Ishiekah limped over to the two women, and it was obvious that together, the three of them planned to finish Shawn off in one last blow. A few yards away, Autumn had regained her strength and had once again lured Randy into a swordfight--definitely not his strong point. The tallest of the three captains managed to clumsily parry one of her thrusts, only to nearly have his ear chopped off by Maya, who'd finally gotten her first kama loose and had recovered her second one to lash out at Randy with a vengeance. Jericho would have certainly laughed at his cohort's being on the losing end in a fight against two girls, were he not regrettably in the same boat, so to speak. Between dodging Trish's relentless rain of poisoned arrows, he found himself playing hopscotch--a game he'd never enjoyed, not even as a young boy--with Elizabeth and her lit bombs. Meanwhile, Sonoko was prepared to impale Shawn on her kodachi. 

The silent kunoichi was just about to run him through, when the roaring sound of pounding hooves boomed across the forest like steadily approaching thunder. Looking down the road, all ten combatants were able to discern a mass of tiny specks crashing toward them, kicking up a storm of dust along the way. And then, the normally taciturn Sonoko abruptly let out a furious howl of, "NO!!!" for she realized who the riders were.   
"So the cavalry has finally come," Ishiekah spat out, awkwardly bending over to tighten the makeshift tourniquet she and Gail had wrapped around her leg wound. 

And who should lead that cavalry but Luke Hayden Maddox, Shawn's faithful second-in-command. Nearly neck-to-neck with him was Nicola Thayar, who hadn't bothered to change out of her civilian dress and was riding astride her tall gray charger with as much grace as possible in her carmine crinoline, skirts flying everywhere and lacy white chemisette peeping from underneath the looping red festoons. Behind them, Gabrielle LeNoir was poised atop her own white horse while at the same time holding the reins to Randy's favorite black stallion. Seeing that Autumn had penetrated his defense and was about to deal an overhead blow that would surely strike him dead, she quickly put spurs to her horse and rode out in front of the others, crying fiercely, "Captain Orton!" and flinging at him the reins of his English charger. Randy didn't waste a second, jumping onto his horse just in time to evade Autumn's swinging slash, before riding away to join his faithful officer. Nicola, seeing that Jericho was about to get penned in by bombs, boldly rode over and yanked him up and onto her own horse, just as a bomb that Elizabeth had rolled to the place he'd previously stood in exploded in a violent flash.   
"You may thank me later, Your Blondeness," she grinned, both of them ducking down as they rode away to avoid the poison-tipped arrows Trish was barraging them with. 

Kuro Kei futilely tried to fight against this new influx of Imperial Guards, but their attempts soon proved to be in vain. Autumn and Maya were finding it increasingly harder to fight Randy when the latter was on horseback, and no matter how high they tried to leap or from what angles they dropped out of trees, he still managed to evade them with maddening ease. Plus, with Gabrielle loyally by his side to divide the two ninja and conquer them separately, their efforts were only made that much more difficult. Nicola had long since dumped Jericho onto a saddle horse of his own, and no matter how precisely Elizabeth could throw her bombs, a charger at full strength was still able to outrun every single one of her flying explosives. Meanwhile, Luke had immediately rushed over to the trio gathered over Shawn, whipping out his longsword with a yell and hacking mercilessly at the startled Sonoko, who hastily parried his first few blows before crying out in fear and fleeing, unable to hold her own for much longer without losing a limb or an eye in a frontal one-on-one duel. Ishiekah wasn't intimidated, and bullheadedly charged off into battle against Luke, succeeding only in making her injury bleed even more and nearly adding half a dozen more gunshot wounds to her list, before Gail quickly pulled her student out of the way. 

Realizing the uselessness of their staying any longer and attempt to fight off this fresh troop, Gail let out a piercing whistle to catch her fellow ninja's attention, ordering authoritatively in a voice that was for once devoid of any hints of glee or laughter, "Retreat!" At these words, Elizabeth promptly began running through the ranks of Imperial Guards and Kuro Kei alike, throwing out handfuls of smoke bombs with each step she took. 

By the time the blinding smokescreen finally cleared up, Kuro Kei had once again disappeared like silent, vicious ghosts into the shadow world.

* * *

  


When Victoria and Lita returned from their chaperoning duties that evening, they were greeted by an uncharacteristically furious cry from the normally smiling Gail, who howled without regard as to who might be within hearing distance, "But how could they have known when and where to show up?!" It was only until the calmer, more composed Trish had informed the two clueless ninja masters of the events that had taken place mere hours earlier that the latter duo was able to infer Gail had been talking about the successful thwarting of their assassination. Victoria was no less incensed than Gail upon hearing the unpleasant news, but Lita, who'd somehow managed to keep a lid on her usually fiery temper, only bit down on her lower lip and spoke up hesitatingly, her voice rising above the noisy curses of the livid pair in a quiet but ominous sentence: "I hate to say this, but I must raise the most unpleasant scenario possible--could it be possible that there's a traitor among us?" 


End file.
